


A Home For Fear

by miraeyeteeth



Series: Finding Home [1]
Category: Rise of the Guardians (2012)
Genre: Friendship, Gen, Mostly humor, Silly antics, Snark, kind of redemption?, some serious stuff
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-03-16
Updated: 2016-11-15
Packaged: 2017-12-05 11:36:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 86
Words: 101,291
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/722836
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/miraeyeteeth/pseuds/miraeyeteeth
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Pitch languishes after his defeat until Jack Frost comes to find him. An exploration of Pitch's place in the world, along with a series of zany antics.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Fear's Home

_Shh, shh, don't be afraid… The boogeyman isn't real, after all…_

Pitch Black lay in the comforting blackness of his lair. The Nightmares had long since left him be, alone to wallow in his own greatest fear- loneliness and obscurity.

Why?

Why did everyone reject him? So what if fear wasn't the most pleasant emotion to experience? Not everyone could be the personification of hope, wonder, or fun. He couldn't help his nature any more than the Guardians could.

It wasn't fair.

Of course, that was nothing new to him. Most people had the nagging fear that life wasn't fair, and that the deck was stacked against them. For some of them, it probably was.

No one seemed to be able to see that fear could protect children, more than toys or eggs or snow could. That child, Jamie… What if he had tried that sledding stunt through traffic  _without_  his precious Jack Frost there to safeguard him? There was nothing wrong with being afraid of things that could seriously hurt you.

But always with the platitudes. No, no, there's nothing wrong. Nothing to fear. Hush now… All those pretty little lies.

Maybe he wasn't being fair. Many parents knew how to use fear to guide children.  _Now, now, eat your vegetables, or the boogeyman will get you._  Or maybe that was how he came about in the first place. He couldn't remember any more. Funny, the Fairy didn't have any of his memories stashed away. He existed before she did, he supposed. In any case, it's not like he owed who or whatever created him any favours. Always the bad guy, always to be hated, never believed.

"Pitch?" A familiar voice echoed through the blackness.

"Jack Frost. To what do I owe the honor? Come here to gloat?" Pitch asked, not bothering to move.

"You're a sore loser, you know that?"

"You're a Guardian now. Don't you have children to go frolic with, instead of pestering me?"

"And here I was, coming to do you a favour... The great and terrible boogeyman, sulking by himself in a corner." Jack nudged him with his staff. "Come on, get up."

"Don't test me, Jack," Pitch growled.

"Just come with me this once, okay? It's not like you have any other pressing business to attend to. "

Pitch muttered under his breath and got to his feet. "What is just so important for me to see?"

"I've found a niche for you. Follow me." With that, Jack grabbed Pitch by the sleeve and a blast of icy wind hurled them out of the lair and into the night sky. It took mere minutes before they drifted to the ground in front of an unremarkable-looking house. "Here, take a look." Jack gestured at the window.

Pitch gave him a withering look, then glanced through the window.

A group of kids, around age 14 or so, huddled together on a couch. They were intent on a movie playing on the TV in front of them. Suddenly, a creature leaped into the foreground of the screen with a howl. Some of the kids jumped and shrieked, hugging their friends. Then the group exploded into a burst of laughter and playful teasing before subsiding to watch the screen again.

"It's fun, you see? They're getting scared, and it's fun!"

"This is what you bothered me for?"

"Come off it, you grump. I know my fun, and you know your fear. Just because something's scary, doesn't mean it can't be enjoyed."

"…Why are you doing this?"

"Because I know how much it hurts to be alone all the time, and no one should have to deal with that. See, you just need to aim for the right audience. If you play your cards right, you could end up being a bigger name than Tooth, you know. I'm sure you've heard of a little holiday called Halloween..."


	2. Preparations

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The previous chapter was intended to stand alone, but I kept getting more ideas and this story kind of spiraled out of control from there. Oops.

"You did WHAT?!" North shouted, looking incredulous.

"Jack, mate, no offense, but are you bonkers?!" Bunnymund threw his hands up in the air. "This is Pitch we're talking about!"

"Look, I know it sounds crazy, but just listen-" Jack began.

"No, I am not going to listen to any harebrained scheme you have about  _helping_  the guy that tried to throw us all into oblivion! Or had you forgotten about that little incident already?"

"No, I haven't. I'm trying to stop it from happening again."

"By, what, giving him enough power to squash us all outright? If he gets kids to believe in him again…"

"He wants to be a part of something! You remember how terrible it was when the kids stopped believing in you. Keeping him in that state is just going to make him more resentful and angry!"

"So you're trying to avoid him grabbing for power by just giving it to him?"

"I'm trying to make sure he won't want to hurt anyone else!" By this point both the teen and the Pooka were glaring daggers at each other.

"Jack… What if he tries to hurt the children on Halloween?" Tooth broke in, looking concerned.

"I would never let that happen," Jack replied.

"Do you think you will be able to stop him?" North frowned.

"I did it before, didn't I? It'll be fine."

"I still say that we send him scurrying back into the shadows where he belongs." Bunnymund muttered.

"Look, I'll keep an eye on him, okay? And if he does anything suspicious, I'll call for you guys. Promise."

"You'd better."

* * *

 

Pitch sat at a table in the darkened library, flipping through a book. There was a knock on the window. He glanced up to see Jack peering inside. He frowned and turned back to the book.

Another knock, this one louder. This time the window was frosted, and written in it was "Let me in."

The boogeyman rolled his eyes and got up from the desk to open the window.

Jack hopped inside. "Hey, thanks. So what are you doing in here?"

"Reading. What else would I be up to in a library?"

There was a slight pause, as if Jack was deciding against the first reply that came to mind. "What're you reading?"

"I fail to see how that matters."

The Guardian leaned against his staff casually. "You know, just making conversation."

"Of course. So, tell me, the other Guardians have sent you to check up on me, correct? Making sure that I'm not reading up on '101 Ways to Subjugate the World and its Inhabitants'?"

"There's a book like that?" Jack asked with a grin.

"I don't appreciate disruptions, Jack. If you must spy on me, be quiet. Or I'll have to make it difficult for you to find me."

"Jeez, you're no fun."

"I was under the impression that was supposed to be your area of expertise, not mine." Pitch stalked back to the table and picked the book back up.

"Isn't it too dark for you to read that?" He certainly couldn't make out any of the words on the page.

"Nothing is too dark for me."

Jack shrugged and went to go wander among the bookshelves. Just what had he gotten himself into? Was he really supposed to watch the Nightmare King for the entire month of October? Cooped up in whatever dusty spaces Pitch decided to occupy? Talk about a nightmare. Already he was itching to go outside and add some frost to the crisp autumn night. Besides, what was Pitch going to do? Get up to some spooky reading? Some bone-chilling research?

Actually, just what was he doing here, anyway? Pitch hadn't exactly struck Jack as the bookish type. Horror stories, maybe? Did the embodiment of fear really need to get inspiration from others? Curious now, Jack headed towards the wall of the library. There had to be a light switch around somewhere.

Several moments and two stubbed toes later, he finally happened upon his goal, a few bookshelves removed from where Pitch was sitting. With a grin, Jack flipped the switch and made a break for it. He rounded the corner just in time to see Pitch slam the book shut and fix him with a glare.

"Oh, heh, was that me? Sorry, just didn't want stumble around blindly in here." Jack rubbed the back of his head and glanced over at the book. An encyclopedia? Looked like it covered subjects from G through I. Well, that cleared up absolutely nothing. He looked back to Pitch, only to find the chair empty. The tall man had vanished into the shadows again. Now he was going to have to go looking for him all over again. With a sigh, Jack went back to turn out the lights and left the library through the window.


	3. The Big Night

One month. One whole month he had been chasing after Pitch, running across him on occasion as the boogeyman went about his mysterious errands. Once at a scrapyard, a couple times in a closed-down shopping center…

He didn't understand why Pitch had to be so elusive. He'd even offered to help the Nightmare King with his plans, but he'd been refused. "If I'm going to be running Halloween, it's going to happen my way, not yours, Jack."

He was starting to worry that Pitch really was plotting something nasty again, and now it was only a few hours to sundown on Halloween. He was going to have to call in the Guardians after all. He groaned. Bunnymund was going to be smug, he just knew it.

* * *

 

The teens looked positively petrified by the time they stumbled out of the house, clustering together protectively. "Jeez, I've never had a haunted house feel so real before…" One whispered to the other.

"Yeah, but wasn't it a rush?" An older looking boy asked, looking a bit less pale now that he was safely outside again. "It was almost like it was tailor-made with us in mind…"

"I'm glad you enjoyed yourselves." A soft voice echoed around them as a man stepped from the shadows. Startled, the teens huddled closer together, staring wide-eyed at the figure. "Fear is something of a specialty of mine, after all."

"Wh- who are you?"

"I think you already know. The Boogeyman, King of Nightmares, Pitch Black, at your service." He made a little mock bow.

"But… you're not real! Mom said!" One of the younger kids piped up.

"Did she? I guess adults don't know everything after all, do they? Now, I've got one more treat for you… Or maybe you would call it a trick." He snapped his fingers and roiling clouds of black sand rose up around the kids. They gasped and shrank back, but there was nowhere to run. The blackness collapsed over the teens and disappeared, leaving no trace of them or itself.

"Pitch!" Like a bolt from the blue, a pale teen hurtled to the ground to land beside Pitch, holding his staff up defensively. "What have you done?!"

Pitch cackled. "Jack, you made it just in time for the fun part!" His mirth was interrupted when a boomerang struck the back of his head and sent him stumbling forward.

"Monster! Where are the kids?!" Bunnymund's enraged voice echoed through the night.

"They-" Pitch was cut off as a coil of golden sand looped around him and dragged him into the air. He found himself looking into the stormy face of the Sandman. The sound of rapid wingbeats and sleighbells let him know that the other two Guardians were there as well.

"So the gang's all here. How nostalgic," Pitch growled disdainfully. He was stronger now, though, especially tonight. He wrenched one arm free of the restraints and hurled darkness into Sandy's face. The momentary distraction loosened the bonds enough for him to break free entirely. Pitch dove into a patch of shadow in the street and promptly dissolved. "Follow me if you can, Guardians!" he taunted.

"Pitch! Get back here and fight!" Bunnymund bounded from a roof to land near where Pitch had disappeared.

"Bah, he is a coward, only fights when he knows he can win!" North landed the sleigh on the street and looked at Jack. "Now do you see that he is all bad?"

"I don't get it… I really had thought…"

"I'm more worried about what he's doing with the children! We can argue about fault later!" Tooth swooped by them. "Can you tell where he went, Sandy?"

The silent Guardian nodded and created an arrow pointing west.

"Then what are we waiting for?" Bunnymund cried, and leaped forwards.

The Guardians quickly reached the yawning black mouth of a large cave. From deep within, they could hear loud thumping noises, along with what sounded like chains rattling, and the occasional scream. Deeply concerned now, they charged in with weapons at the ready.

They came to a screeching halt at the sight before them. Dozens of kids were within the cavern, many of them indulging themselves at the tables generously laden with all kinds of candies and treats. Others were dancing to some kind of Halloween soundtrack, the source of the chains, thumps, and wails. At the far end of the cavern, another group was sitting down facing Pitch. He appeared to be telling a scary story, punctuating his tale with images that formed out of black sand. He paused when he saw the Guardians come in. "Ben. You take over, you've got some good ones." He said, before leaving to go meet his newest guests.

"Expecting something else?" he asked coldly.

"Uh… Just a little." Jack was the first one to compose himself after the surprise, and lowered his staff. "Why didn't you just-"

"Say something? You didn't seem very keen on talking, just on beating me. Besides, would you have believed me?"

"I'm still not sure I believe it." Bunnymund muttered, looking around suspiciously. "What if the kids want to leave?"

"I've provided transportation." Pitch gestured towards a group of Nightmares penned near the entrance of the cave. "Or I can send them back the same way they got here. It's not as fanciful as your little globes, North, but it gets the job done. You can even talk to the kids yourselves, if you'd like." He smirked. "Well, that is, if any of them can see you."

Tooth raised a hand to her mouth in alarm. "Pitch, you didn't…"

"Don't get your wings in a twist, fairy. I've done nothing to them. They're just older ones, twelve and thirteen, thereabouts. They tend to be a bit more skeptical than your audience." Pitch seemed to take no small pleasure in the existence of kids able to see him but not the Guardians. "Now, are we finished here, or do you still feel like fighting?"

"Uh, no, I think we're good. Right, guys?" Jack said.

The rest of the group had managed to pick their jaws off of the floor at this point. "I… suppose." North lowered his swords. "But I am still going to be watching you, Pitch."

"I wouldn't expect anything less. I believe you can see yourselves out." Pitch turned away to head back to the party.

"Wait." Jack followed after him. "Pitch, I'm sorry about-"

The boogeyman held up a hand to stop him. "I won't ask for your apologies, Jack. Given my prior behavior, it's not like the conclusion you jumped to was unfounded. Besides…" Pitch smiled. It was a sinister looking smile, but Jack wasn't sure Pitch was capable of looking any other way. "If not for you, it would have never occurred to me to try this."

"Aw, was that a thank-you?"

The smile vanished. "Don't press your luck."

"Fine, fine. But I think I'll stick around for a bit longer. Make sure you're not doing anything terrible."

"You're just here to eat all of the candy and make a scene."

"And here I didn't think you knew me so well." Jack laughed.

"Very well." Pitch snapped his fingers and all the lights in the cave were suddenly extinguished. A moment later, they flickered back to life. Most of the guests were now looking at the two of them, or at least at Pitch. "Now that I have your attention, I would like to introduce you all to an old acquaintance of mine, Jack Frost." Black sand swirled around Jack as if to highlight his position. "He's here to join the festivities as well. After all, what goes together better than cold and dark?"

The memories associated with the last time Pitch had used that phrase made Jack falter for an instant. Then he took note of the kids peering at him curiously and saw his chance for making some fun. He leapt into the party. "Hey, everyone! Look what I can do!" He called as snow and ice swirled around him and formed fantastic shapes.

"…I should really get back to the workshop. Christmas is less than two months away…" North muttered, watching the crowd.

"Yeah, I've got business to attend to, back at the Warren…"

"Well, I'm going to go make sure that candy is okay. Cavities, you know." Tooth said, before flitting her way inside of the cave as well.

Sandy shrugged and skipped towards Jack, who was doing quadruple somersaults as the kids looked on.

North and Bunnymund looked at each other. "…I won't tell anyone if you won't." The large rabbit said.

"Deal!"


	4. Aside

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter takes place before the Guardians come to find Pitch on Halloween.

Pitch was just putting the finishing touches on his haunted house when he felt a sudden spike of fear from several blocks away. He paused. The sun was barely down, just what was causing that exquisitely intense feeling of fear? Was someone trying to beat him at his own game? Curious, he moved towards the source.

He had almost reached the area; it appeared to be down a dark alleyway, when he heard the sound of a blow being struck, and a small cry.  _Oh, the threat of violence. How brutish._ Pitch thought, disappointed. He looked down the alley to see a man dragging a struggling young girl towards a car.

Cold fury trickled through Pitch. This was  _his_  night, and someone dared to try to abduct one of  _his_ charges? With a growl, he strode to the pair and grabbed at the man's arm. His hand passed through the human's flesh as if it wasn't even there. Pitch gritted his teeth. He refused to be powerless on Halloween, the night dedicated to fear and dark.

Actually, people did tend to be more superstitious about ghouls and ghosts at this time of the year. Maybe he could bend the rules a bit… Producing a handful of glittering black dust, he blew it into the man's face.

The man blinked and suddenly leapt backwards, swearing. "Where did you come from?"

Pitch grinned. This trick would work for maybe a minute- adults were far too good at disbelieving in things- but a minute was all he needed. "From your worst nightmares. Get him," Pitch said, and a horde of Nightmares came pouring out of the shadows, charging at the man. He yelped and ran, hotly pursued.

Pitch laughed. Sometimes, it was good to be him. Suddenly, he felt an impact at his back. Thinking he was under some kind of attack, he twisted around to see the young girl from before clinging to him. She had her face buried in his robes and was shaking like a leaf. Pitch paused. This was something new.

From where he was standing now, it was easy to see the crumpled costume wings on the child's back. She had been dressed as a fairy, of course. He scowled.

"I- I was so scared!" She sobbed. "You saved me!"

"Oh, did I?" He removed the child's arms from around his waist and ushered her back from him. He crouched down so that their eyes were level and smiled. "And who's to say I didn't chase him off so I could eat you myself?"

The girl flinched away, raising her hands defensively. Then, after a moment had passed, she peeked at him from between her fingers. "…You would've done it already." She said, with some conviction.

"Such a brave girl." Pitch straightened. "Fortunately, this time you happen to be correct. I'm not particularly peckish at this point in time."

"Did- did you come out from under my bed to chase the bad man away?" The girl blurted out.

Ah. The child believed in monsters under her bed. Explained how she saw him so quickly. "…Maybe. But I should go back, and so should you." He snapped his fingers and another Nightmare came to his side. "This will take you home. Tell your parents about the man, and tell them the license plate numbers on that car. Leave out the part about me. I'll get a bad reputation- saving kids. It's no fitting job for the boogeyman."

The girl looked at the huge black horse apprehensively. "It's scary." In response, the Nightmare snorted eagerly and took a few steps forward.

"It's supposed to be. But if it knows what's good for it, it'll take you straight home like a good horse, won't it?" Pitch yanked on the Nightmare's reins, and the creature whickered reluctantly.

The girl still looked frightened, and for some reason Pitch was not enjoying that as much as he should be. He supposed now was as good a time as any to try his hand at the second half of Halloween tradition. Tricks, he was more than experienced with. Treats, on the other hand…

But from what he had read, candy was a traditional part of Halloween, and he was determined to pull this off correctly. Besides, the kid wasn't in any state to do more Trick-or-Treating. Pitch reached into the shadows and drew out a bag that was practically oozing sugar. He showed the girl, then he placed it on the Nightmare's saddle and a coil of darkness held it in place. "For when you get home. Now, up you go." Black sand swirled around the child and lifted her onto the Nightmare's back.

Pitch stepped back and watched the equine leap into the night sky and charge off, the girl clinging to its mane with a yelp. She should be fine; he wasn't as powerful as he used to be, but the Nightmares wouldn't dare disobey him tonight.

He wondered for a moment why he bothered with the child anyway. What did it matter to him, what happened to her? He supposed that he was simply jealous of someone who would try to take away one of the children he was supposed to be scaring. Speaking of which… He turned to look at the kidnapper's car. It wouldn't do for the man to come back and just drive off now.

Pitch smiled and picked up his scythe. When he was done with it, this car wasn't going to be giving rides to children any time soon.


	5. Conversation

"Jack! It's terrible!" Tooth swooped down on Jack, forcing him to halt abruptly in his frost-spreading antics. The fairy held her cupped hands in front of Jack's face, showing him a handful of teeth. "Just look at them!"

"Er, are you feeling alright? They look fine to me."

"They're positively riddled with cavities!" the fairy wailed. "It's Pitch's doing! He handed out all that candy, and I'm sure he's fueling the kids' fears of the dentist!"

Jack stared at her. "Okay… What's this got to do with me?"

"You've got to stop him! Talk to him!"

"Me? Why?"

"He listens to you."

He did? That was news to Jack. The boogeyman had been more cordial to him as of late, sure. Well, he hadn't tried to attack him recently, at least. But it wasn't as though they were buddies or anything. If Tooth was set on something, though, it would be easier to go along than try to argue her down. "Right, sure. I'll give it a shot."

The tooth fairy gave him a brilliant smile. "Thanks, Jack!" she said, before flitting off.

Jack sighed. If he had known that helping Pitch out that one time would have made him the boogeyman's keeper… Well, he still would have done it. Nothing for it, he supposed. This place was going to have to go without frost for tonight. Jack leapt into the air and let the winds carry him off.

* * *

Jack slid under the rotting bedframe and dropped down the tunnel into Pitch's lair.

"Pit- Aaaaagh!" The moment he landed, he heard a sudden snarl and a huge black shape crashed into him, pinning him to the floor. Jack found himself staring up into the maws of some gigantic black wolf, its crazed and red-glowing eyes fixed on him as black drool dripped from the bared fangs and onto his hoodie.

"Nox, no!" A pale grey hand grabbed the creature by the scruff of its neck and hauled it off of Jack.

"Phew. Thanks…" Jack began, before noticing that Pitch was currently lecturing the beast. He sat up.

"What did I tell you about intruders? You go for the Achilles tendon first. Then you can disable them quickly and shift your focus to keeping an eye out for any more of them. If four or five come in at once, pinning only one is just going to get you blasted away." Finished, Pitch turned his attention to his new guest. "Oh. Hello, Jack."

"What is that? And why are you teaching it to maul people?"

"What can I say? I take home security seriously. And you should really knock on the door before you come into my lair."

"You don't  _have_  a door."

"Exactly. When I install one, you can then assume that you are welcome to come bother me."

"Oh, come on, since when has being unwelcome ever stopped me from doing  _anything_?" Jack asked, picking up his staff and getting to his feet. He grimaced and tried to brush the drool off of his shirt. It came off surprisingly easily; it was apparently made of nightmare sand and quickly flaked off. "But seriously, what is that thing? Nightmares aren't good enough anymore?"

"It's my newest creation. I've been calling them Hellhounds. I wanted to see if I could make something with a bit more loyalty than the Nightmares is all." Pitch smiled and patted the head of the hound, which happened to be at the same level as his chest. "Well, that and I thought something new would be interesting for next Halloween. The children are just going to love them."

"The kids are going to be scared silly of them."

"Same thing, isn't it?" Pitch waved a hand and the Hellhound loped off into the shadows. "Now, what brings you here? Arbitrary as you may appear, generally there is a reason you come to disturb my peace."

"Well, you see, Tooth asked me to," Jack said, noticing the way the boogeyman's eyes narrowed at the mention of the other Guardian. "She's worried about cavities and stuff, you know, from the Halloween candy."

"You can hardly blame me for that. Candy was part of the holiday long before I got involved. It's not my style, you know that," Pitch responded, folding his arms.

"And the dentists?"

"What children aren't scared of places where they get sharp objects jammed into their mouths?" Pitch asked innocently.

"…Sure, right. Can't I ask you to let up on it a bit, though? Please?"

"And why should I?" Pitch snapped.

Jack was slightly taken aback. "Well, I thought-"

"What? That I would take over Halloween, and everything would be fine? I would invite everyone over here for tea and biscuits?" Pitch laughed bitterly. "Oh, no, Jack. I hate the Guardians. I would take great pleasure in watching each and every one of them be entirely forgotten."

"Already tried that once. It didn't stick, remember?" Jack tightened both of his hands around his staff.

Pitch nodded. "Right you are. Unfortunately, you lot are too strong. Trying to bring you down is a waste of my time and yours. But one can always dream, right?"

"Pitch, you don't have to be like this. I mean, I didn't know I was a Guardian. Maybe you-"

"Don't be naïve, Jack. You were chosen by the Man in the Moon. I'm the one he made the Guardians to stop, to protect the children from. I'm the opposite of a Guardian."

Jack raised one eyebrow and grinned. "Oh, you think so? That's not what I've been hearing."

"And just what have you been hearing?"

"Oh, you know. There's a little girl in town who's been telling her friends about how a tall, scary man with a bunch of black horses rescued her. On Halloween, wasn't it?"

Shock and embarrassment spread over Pitch's face, before he suddenly turned away. "No good deed goes unpunished, isn't that how the saying goes?"

"Come on, Pitch. There's no shame in being a big old softie. …Well, okay, maybe a little shame." Jack said with a laugh.

"…You know too much. I'm going to have to kill you now." Pitch turned back to Jack, black sand flowing out of the shadows to gather around him.

"Hah, I'd like to see you try!" Jack retorted, grinning and twirling his staff.


	6. Battle

Pitch's lair was an absolute mess. Spiky black and white monuments of the clash between cold and dark lay scattered everywhere. A thick layer of frost seemed to cover everything, and shards of ice and darkness lay gleaming on the floor. Jack Frost stood in the midst of the devastation, breathing slightly more heavily than usual. His eyes darted left and right, then he took a moment to shake black sand out of his hair and the sleeves of his shirt. "Come out, come out, wherever you are!" He called, holding his staff in front of him with both hands. "I know you're lurking here somewhere!"

As if in response, the boogeyman stepped silently from the shadows behind Jack, smirking in anticipation of his sneak attack. Suddenly, he noticed that Jack was standing facing a mirror-smooth piece of ice, and that he could see both himself and the teen clearly reflected in it. Jack grinned. "Gotcha." He struck his staff against the ground and ice raced from the spot to encase Pitch's legs, trapping him. Jack whirled and leveled his staff at the boogeyman. "Will you admit defeat, villain?"

"I think not." Pitch responded, and whistled. The black hound from before abruptly bounded out of the darkness and clamped down on the staff, wrenching it from Jack's grip. Startled blue eyes met triumphant yellow ones as the Nightmare King grinned. "Now, Jack. Beg me for mercy."

The nightmare sand that had worked its way under Jack's hoodie suddenly began to move, tickling him relentlessly. Jack gasped and convulsed, falling to the floor. "Eeek! You- ahaha! You monster! My one- haha- weakness!"

"Did you really think I wouldn't find out?"

"This- pfft- this is low, Pitch!" Jack cried, clutching his sides and squirming.

"Jack?" The unexpected voice made them both suddenly stop and look at the entrance to the lair. Toothiana was peering into the cavern, looking utterly perplexed. "What's going on?"

For a moment the two of them shared a remarkably similar expression, like two children who had just been caught doing something that they shouldn't have. Then Jack gave her one of his award-winning smiles. "I'm battling evil, Tooth. What's it look like?"

"I think you meant to say that you're  _losing_ ," Pitch retorted as the sand resumed tickling Jack.

"Ahaha! No, please! Make it stop!"

A veritable deluge of dreamsand suddenly poured over Jack, chasing away the darkness. The sandman was peering out of the entrance as well, now.

"Whew, thanks, mate. Seeing that going on was all kinds of creepy." Bunnymund hopped out of one of his tunnels near the sputtering Jack.

Pitch groaned exasperatedly. "Did I somehow forget that I sent out invitations to you lot?" He looked off to one side at the growling Hellhound that was bristling at the Guardians, Jack's staff still held in its teeth. "Nox, heel." The beast went to its master's side as Pitch broke his legs free of the ice.

"We were worried when Jack didn't come back, is all," Tooth said.

"Drop it." The staff clattered to the floor. Pitch grabbed it and tossed it at Jack's feet. "Well, you've got him back. Now get out."

Jack shook sand out of his ears and picked up the staff, ice crackling back over its surface again. "We'll call it a tie, then?"

"Oh, I had you beat, Jack, if your little entourage hadn't showed up. But, if you feel like tasting defeat again, I'll be happy to have a rematch sometime," Pitch replied with a smirk.


	7. The Escape, Part 1

It was around midnight when Jack flew back to his pond for a rest. Fall was coming around in the Northern Hemisphere again, and he was starting to get busy. He'd be working on some snow days for the kids very soon.

There was someone lying prone on the ice of Jack's home turf. He couldn't make out features in the dim light, but there was most certainly a body on the pond. Jack's heart gave a lurch. Were they hurt? What had happened? He quickly zipped down to the ground and hurried to approach the person. "Hey, are you okay?" He asked, before a cloud moved out of the way of the moon a revealed a familiar black-clad figure looking up at him. "Oh, it's just you."

Pitch blinked. "Most people don't react to my presence with relief."

"I'm not most people. What are you doing?" Jack asked.

"Currently? I'm watching the moon."

"What? Why?"

"Oh, you know, the usual. Just pondering if I could construct a cannon large enough to blow that smug meddler out of the sky." Pitch got off of the ground. "But that's not what I'm here for. I have an offer for you, Jack."

"Oh? And does this offer involve darkness, trickery, and scaring the snot out of kids?"

Pitch smiled. "Come now. Do  _any_  of my plans not involve those three variables?" He waved a hand dismissively. "You can relax, though. It doesn't involve ruling the world together. I've come to the conclusion that you would make an absolutely dreadful second-in-command."

"Well, gee, thanks for that."

"What I need is a nemesis. A hero, if you will. I'm going to be having a… contest of sorts this Halloween. The Pitch Black Escape. The children who enter will try to get out of the contest location before I catch them. I thought it would lend something extra to the experience to have someone trying to rescue them, too. We can make a competition of it. You see how many kids you can get out, and I'll see how many I can drag off with my Hellhounds."

"Huh. The kids that lose, what happens to them?" Jack asked, looking pensive.

"Eternal darkness and torment, what else?" Pitch responded with a razor-thin smile. Then he sobered. "You recall what I did with the children I borrowed last Halloween, I assume. I'll have a similar set-up this time. They'll be completely unharmed."

"Well, then, that sounds like a blast. Just don't get too angry when I wipe the floor with you!"

"I'm simply quaking at the thought of it." Pitch drawled. "I'll let you know more information once I've finished preparing everything. Oh, and if you could keep the other Guardians from barging in and ruining everything, I would appreciate it." With that, the boogeyman stepped into a patch of shadow and was gone.

Jack stood on the pond for a few moments, puzzling over this strange behavior. Pitch had always wanted to work alone before now. Why the change? Surely the contest would be more frightening if Jack wasn't there. Having someone to rely on in times of fear made people stronger, that had already been proven back when he and the Guardians had defeated Pitch. It could be some kind of trap for him, possibly. Pitch  _had_  asked that the others be kept out of this. But it wasn't as if he hadn't had other opportunities to attack the newest Guardian when he was alone and at a disadvantage.

Still, it seemed too good to be true. If he did well, Jack would be considered a hero and gain a fair number of believers. All to Pitch's detriment. Unless… Was this the boogeyman's way of expressing gratitude? Sharing his believers? That would be even stranger for Pitch to do, though. Maybe he was just being competitive… In any case, Jack didn't think he had too much to worry about. He was confident could handle whatever Pitch had up his sleeve.


	8. The Escape, Part 2

There were probably about thirty kids gathered in the empty lot, most of them talking to each other about the strange posters that had told them to come, the ones that the adults didn't seem to see. Yellow writing on a black background had proclaimed:

_The Pitch Black Escape._

_A night of terror and entertainment. Prizes to be won._

_The horror begins at 8pm on Halloween, at the corner of 2_ _nd_ _ave and Timber Street. Ages 12 and up._

Some of the kids thought it was just a prank. What, was the challenge to escape from the lot? Maybe nothing was going to happen at all. Others figured they were going to get on a bus to somewhere else.

"Bobby, I don't really like this," one girl was saying to a slightly older boy. "You know I hate scary things."

"Relax. Mom said I had to watch you tonight, so you've got to come along. This will probably be lame anyway."

It was at this point that everything went dark, and there was a terrible lurching sensation as though a giant pit had just opened up beneath them. The next thing they knew, the group was standing in the middle of a large, dimly-lit room with high, arching ceilings and a dirty linoleum floor. Cold laughter suddenly echoed from all around them.

"Welcome, dear ones, to the arena. It's an abandoned hospital that I repurposed, though I can't guarantee that  _all_  of the former residents are gone. You're on the top floor now. If you can get out, you win. If I catch you… well, most of you will be finding out what happens soon enough. Best of luck!"

The kids looked apprehensively around. A dozen twisting corridors led off in all directions from the main room they were in. There were some paler patches on the walls where it appearred as though the signs had been ripped off, but no indication of which way to go. Everywhere looked creepy and even less well-lit than where they currently were.

"I'm scared, Bobby." The girl whimpered, huddling close to her brother.

"It's okay, Lily. It can't be real, it's just a trick. Come on, I'll get us out of here." He grabbed her by the hand and picked one corridor at random. He stepped into one patch of shadows that was particularly dense, and there was the sound of a sudden snap. He looked down to see a black device similar to a bear trap, though without the teeth, fastened tightly around his ankle. Shadows were oozing from the object and moving up his leg. "…I can't feel my leg." Bobby said dully, watching the darkness and feeling the numbness spread over him. Then a note of panic entered his voice. "What's happening to me?!"

The shadows seemed to move faster as Bobby's fear grew. Now they had covered the entire lower half of his body and were spreading rapidly over his chest. Lily screamed and tried to brush them away, but when she touched the darkness, her hand passed through both it and her brother as though they were made of loosely-packed sand. Within moments, the shadows had consumed the boy, and dissolved into nothingness once more.

"Ooh, I got one already. This will be easier than I thought." The voice from before said, a sing-song tone to it.

It was at this point that the rest of the kids panicked and ran.

* * *

Jack had been with the kids from the beginning, though of course they hadn't been able to see him. He'd even taken the same trip to the hospital as they had. He thought Pitch had been understating the effects of travelling through his nightmare sand; it had sort of felt like someone had dumped a bucket of ice water on his soul. He wondered momentarily if Pitch felt like that all the time, maybe it explained why he was normally so grumpy. Probably not- it wasn't as though Jack ever got cold from his own powers.

He had to hand it to Pitch, though; the man knew how to make an impression. The place he had set up for this was incredibly spooky, and the introduction was a nice touch. Even Jack was a little creeped out by the whole thing.

There was a sudden commotion over at the other end of the room. Jack hurried over just in time to see the kid disappear. He frowned. "You're starting already? That's not fair, Pitch!"

"Oh, I never said I would play fair, Jack. Better hurry up," a voice whispered in his ear and was gone. Jack sighed. How was he supposed to help kids that couldn't even see him?

* * *

Bobby opened his eyes to find himself in a small, unadorned room. At first glance, it seemed to be utterly empty, then there was suddenly a tall man with bright yellow eyes standing in it with him, staring. The kid gasped and scrambled backwards against the wall. He tried to gather up his courage. "Wh-where am I? What's going to happen?"

"What, to you?" The man chuckled. "Nothing. I already won; you're free to go." Once again the room was empty, and the door leading out of it was open.

* * *

Lily had scrambled into one of the hospital rooms during the chaos that had ensued. 407, it was. That meant they were on the fourth or fifth floor, right? How was she supposed to get all the way down on her own? Especially now that Bobby had… She huddled down with her knees up to her chest and tried to fight down tears. "I don't want to play anymore," she whimpered.

She heard a snuffling sound from outside of the room, and the skittering of claws over linoleum. Lily froze, holding her breath. There was something out there.  _Please don't let it find me, please…._  A huge black creature, a wolf maybe, moved past the doorway. She heard it pad a short ways down the hallway, then stop. The steps started coming nearer to her room again. "No…" Lily whispered, shrinking further back into a corner, willing herself to be invisible.

She could just see the head of the wolf, with its glowing red eyes, peering into the room when it suddenly froze. Literally, it seemed. She could see ice glittering all through the beast's fur. "What the…?" She said, and she could see her breath condensing in front of her, as though the room had suddenly dropped several degrees. She shivered. Ghosts were supposed to cause sudden temperature drops, right? The warning about how all the residents of the hospital might not have left echoed in her mind.

Writing in frost suddenly started to appear on the floor in front of her. Lily shrieked a little and scrambled back. Still, she couldn't keep herself from reading the message.

_Don't be scared._

_I'm here to help. My name is Jack Frost._

A crude drawing of a lily also appeared on the ground. It rose out of the ground and unfurled, creating a perfect replica of her namesake in ice. Lily couldn't help but smile a little. "Jack Frost, huh?" And suddenly there was an ice-pale boy in a blue hoodie crouched near the writing. "Ahh!"

"Whoa, hey, relax!" He said, holding up his hands. "It's okay, I'm not gonna hurt you."

"A-are you a ghost?"

"Not in the strictest sense of the word, no. I'm here to get you out of this place."

"How?"

The boy, Jack, looked around, then pointed up at a window. It was too high for either of them to reach. "How about that?"

"But we're on the fourth floor…" Lily said.

Jack smiled. "Not a problem. Just hold on." He stretched out a hand. After a moment's hesitation, Lily took it. His hand was very cold, but holding it was reassuring. Jack pulled her closer and then they were floating up to the window, which he pushed open and took them both through. The wind blew through Lily's hair as they drifted slowly down to the ground far below.

Once they were back on solid ground, Jack let her hand go. "Taking my prey away, are you?" A cold, familiar voice said from behind them. Lily scrambled to hide behind Jack, and peered out at the man in black who was looking down at them.

"She made it out of the place, Pitch. She won," Jack replied.

"So she did. Rules are rules, I suppose." Pitch sighed and pulled out a small black card. "I have a prize for you, child."

"I don't want it."

The boogeyman paused. "Pardon?"

"I said, I don't want it. You took my brother away. I want him back." Lily said, stepping out from behind Jack to glare at Pitch.

"You're quite sure? Very well, then." The man shrugged and snapped his fingers. Bobby suddenly materialized out of the shadows. He had chocolate on one side of his mouth and was holding a bunch of brightly-wrapped candies in one hand. He looked quite disoriented.

"What the-" was all the boy managed to say before he was pulled into a tight hug by his sister. "Oof, hey, cut it out."

"You're okay?" Lily asked, still not letting go.

"Uh, yeah. It was just a game…"

"The party is a block back down that way," Pitch said, gesturing down a street. "Oh, and here. Maybe you still don't want it, but not every child has the guts to stand up to the boogeyman." Pitch put the card in Lily's hand. "It's a favour. Snap it, and I'll show up. If you've got some people bothering you, I'd be more than happy to scare them off. Now, I've got other business to attend. Farewell."

"Oh, he's off again. I'd better go foil his evil schemes. See ya, Lily." Jack said, taking back off towards the hospital.


	9. The Escape, Part 3

A group of kids were edging their way down a darkened hallway. Some of them had obtained sticks or poles from the piles of abandoned junk that could be found in some of the hospital's closets. These children were leading the way, prodding any suspicious patches of wall or floor before moving ahead. They were making slow progress, but at least none of them had been swallowed by terrible shadowy things. At least, not yet. They were a jumpy bunch, flinching at every creak or groan of the decrepit building.

At last they came to a hallway intersection. There was an arrow drawn in frost on the floor of the leftmost hallway, shimmering with a faint blue glow in the gloom. The kids looked at it for a moment, then huddled to confer in hushed voices.

"I don't like the look of that."

"It's probably a trap or something."

"Yeah, we should probably avoid it. Let's go the other way."

An agreement reached, they headed down the right hallway instead. This rapidly proved to be a bad idea, as they came to a dead end room with very imaginative and chillingly realistic murals of monstrous wolves on the walls.

"Tsk, tsk. You really should have listened to Jack Frost, you know. He was only trying to help," the same mocking voice from before said.

Several of the kids screamed, one braver boy clutched his makeshift weapon and sneered. "Jack Frost? What, is the Easter Bunny here too?"

"Oh, no, that insufferable hare would make a mess of everything. Though I'm hurt by your lack of faith, I really am. Especially since you're in the boogeyman's playground, I would have thought you would have been a bit more openminded… Well, I suppose it doesn't make a difference now." A gaunt man with piercing yellow eyes emerged from the shadows of the wall, as did the rest of the paintings, stepping from two dimensions into three and fixing the children with hungry red eyes. "You can try running now, if you want. It should be quite amusing."

The children began to back away when a gust of freezing wind rushed past them and ice seemed to burst out of nowhere, forming a wall between the kids and the shadows. "Run!" A cried warning snapped the kids out of shock and they rushed back the way they had came. Back down the hallway, to the intersection, and then following the frosty arrows guiding their way. Scrambling down a set of stairs that had been only one turn away. Only once they had reached the second floor and a stairwell blocked with debris did they stop to catch their breath, shaking and gasping.

"Wow, you guys can really run. You should consider trying out for the track team when you go back home." A pale boy carrying a shepherd's crook slid down the stairs' bannister, coming to a halt near them.

"You're Jack Frost?" one girl asked.

"The one and only." Jack said with a grin, sweeping a deep bow. "Here to help."

"Did… Did you get rid of the boogeyman?"

"Um, well, not exactly… But those hounds won't be thawing out 'til spring. And don't worry, I'll keep you guys safe if he does show up."

The kids stared at their protector with a mixed expression of hope and apprehension.

"Now come on, we're almost out."

Progress was made a lot faster with Jack in the lead, sauntering forward confidently and cracking jokes. At least until they came to what appeared to be the main landing of the hospital, where they all stopped and just stared for a moment.

An enormous wrought-iron structure dominated the room, forged into the shape of a pumpkin with dozens of eerie and frightening designs worked throughout. Some were sinister-looking faces, others seemed to be entirely inhuman. The entire thing was lit from within by a large and roaring bonfire, casting a hellish glow throughout the area.

"That's… really something," Jack finally said.

"I'll take that as a compliment." Pitch was suddenly standing on top of the Jack-O-Lantern, looking down at them. "But I've grown tired of toying with you, and you've gotten rather close to escaping my clutches by now. I simply can't have that. So I'll be taking the children." Chains formed of black sand shot out from the shadows behind the boogeyman.

Jack blasted the chains apart with bolts of ice again and again, but more seemed to appear at every turn. It was moments before one made it past his guard and arrowed for the boy who had argued with Pitch before. Jack instinctively launched himself bodily between the kid and the attack. The chain whipped around him, pinning his arms to his side and binding his legs. Then he was jerked forward, dragged into the boogeyman's clutches.

"So predictable, Jack."

Jack gritted his teeth and strained against the chains. Restrained like this, he couldn't line up his staff to get a proper shot at Pitch. "Get to the exit, kids!" He yelled. "I'll be fine!"

"Will you? I really think you've interfered enough. And what better place to keep you than a  _Jack_ -O-Lantern?"Pitch held the bound Guardian over an opening in the top of the structure. "You know, I always wondered if fire would do the same to you as it does to regular ice. Shall we see?"

Jack's eyes widened. "Pitch, don't-"

The boogeyman laughed and dropped him through the hole. Jack flailed and summoned a gust of wind to blow him towards the walls of the cage, where he managed to hook a foot into an opening and dangle upside-down there, gasping.  _That was too close. What is Pitch thinking?_  He shuddered, then paused. Where was the heat? He should be feeling really uncomfortably warm right now. Jack craned his neck to look downwards, and was greeted by the sight of a rather impressive array of lightbulbs, fluttering flame-colored streamers, and other devices that were probably the things making the cracks and roaring sounds of the fire. "Oh, you  _rotter_ ," he muttered under his breath.

The threat of imminent demise and/or painful burns gone, he was free to pay attention to the rest of his surroundings, which seemed to consist of a lot of shouting at the moment.

"Let Jack go! Let him out!" The hotheaded boy was yelling, and the others were hollering in agreement.

"You're in no position to be making demands." Pitch said coldly. "I don't think you understand how precarious your position is. You're in  _my_ domain, at  _my_ mercy, and your only protector is slowly melting away."

"He's... He's not a part of this! You're after kids, right? So leave him alone, and I'll… I'll…"

"Oh?" Pitch grinned and vanished, only to reappear directly in front of the kids. They recoiled. "Are you proposing a trade, then? But wouldn't it just be easier to walk out that door and forget this whole thing ever happened? You didn't even know Jack existed until now, after all…"

"I-I'm not leaving Jack."

The chains around the Guardian suddenly loosened.  _That's my cue, is it?_  Jack thought, wriggling free.

"How sickeningly loyal of you. Or maybe I should say stupid..." The bolt of ice that struck the boogeyman hurled him right across the room. Pitch scrambled to his feet. "Frost! How dare you!"

"Jack!" The kids looked positively awestruck at the return of their hero.

Jack laughed as he flew out of the structure. "I said I would be fine, didn't I? Now go! I'll take it from here!" The group did as they were told and rushed out the door.

The two immortals exchanged several volleys of ice and darkness. "I didn't know you were so dramatic, Pitch!" Jack yelled as he hurled snow at the boogeyman.

"That was repayment. Don't expect an easy win next time!" Pitch retorted, batting away a chunk of ice with his scythe.

"Psh, the whole thing was under control. I would've won either way!"

"We'll have to see next year, won't we?" A series of rapid attacks from the nightmare sand forced Jack to swoop low to the ground. "Now, go greet your adoring public. I'll make an appearance shortly." Pitch looked down at his ice-crusted robes. "I'm just going to thaw out for a bit first."


	10. Favour

It was nighttime, and Jack was perched on the windowsill of one house, practicing a few of his frost-patterning techniques on the glass in front of him.  _One of my better works, if I do say so myself._  He thought with a sense of accomplishment.

"Boo."

"Ahh!" Jack flinched backwards, startled, and fell into a snowdrift. "Pitch, don't scare me like that."

"Oh, I'm sorry." The boogeyman said, looking down at Jack with a grin. "Is there a particular way you would like me to scare you? I've got lots of options."

"Pass, thanks. What brings you? It's only been a few days since Halloween, did you miss me already?" Jack asked, climbing out of the snow.

"Hardly." Pitch drawled. "Actually, I'm here because… I… could use your help." He spit out those last four words like they left a bad taste in his mouth.

Jack blinked. "And me without my tape recorder… Did I hear that right? Why?"

"It's the favour cards. They were a terrible idea!" Pitch ran a hand through his hair in exasperation. "I thought that they would use them in emergencies, or to give nightmares to their enemies, something reasonable! But no, I'm getting called in for the most inane things. One girl wanted me to help with her homework!"

"That doesn't sound so bad…"

"I don't know the first thing about chemistry!"

"Really?"

"No, Jack, they didn't cover that in my eldritch abomination introductory seminar." Pitch said, rolling his eyes before launching back into his rant. "It's infuriating! I swear they're just doing it to get back at me from scaring them!"

"I think you're over-reacting a bit here."

Pitch suddenly stopped and looked off to the left. "Oh, piss. It's another one. Jack, you know how to deal with children. You're coming with me." Without waiting for a response, he grabbed Jack's arm and they both melted into the shadows.

Pitch stepped smoothly into the kid's room via the closet. "The King of Nightmares has heard your request and has come. What is it that you require?" he asked, looming ominously over the boy.

And then Jack ruined the moment by stumbling in immediately afterwards and knocking over a chair. Pitch held his face in his hand and sighed.

"Oh, cool! Hey, Jack!"

"Hi, Steven. Sorry about the chair, not used to the whole shadow walking thing." Jack said, putting things back the way they were. "You didn't get grounded over the snowplow incident, did you?"

"Naw, I managed to cover up the evidence. The coffee shop owner said-"

"Yes, yes, this is very interesting, can we get back to why I am here?" Pitch broke in, gritting his teeth.

"Oh, right. Well, you see there's this girl…"

Pitch seemed to perk up a bit. "And you want me to scare her?"

"No! I… There's this dance coming up, and I wanted to ask her…" A faint blush was rising in Steven's cheeks.

Pitch shot Jack a look that seemed to say:  _You see what I have to deal with?_  "I believe you're mistaking me for cupid, boy."

"Do you know him? Can you ask him-"

"We aren't on speaking terms." Pitch replied in a tone of voice that implied that he would not take kindly to being asked the reason for this.

"Oh…"

"I have an idea!" Jack interjected brightly.

* * *

There was something terrible chasing Meredith. She didn't know what it was or why it was after her, but she had to keep running or it would catch her. Only problem was, she was getting really, really tired. And she was in the middle of the woods, with no other people or rescue in sight. "No, no, no…" She kept gasping, frantically searching for a hiding spot, a house, something. A tree root caught her foot and she fell. The thing was right behind her, she could feel its fetid breath on the back of her neck. Meredith screamed.

Suddenly she felt someone grab her hand and pull her up. She was sitting on a white horse now, sitting in front of whoever had rescued her. She felt herself shaking in relief. "Thank you," she gasped, turning to look at the person behind her. "…Steven?"

The boy smiled. "I couldn't let you get hurt. I still have to ask you something. Will you go to the dance with me?"

Meredith blushed and smiled, a little. "I'd-"

And then she woke up.

* * *

"Finished." Pitch didn't look happy; he wasn't used to turning nightmares into dreams, and he didn't like it. "If you work up the courage to ask her out now, it should turn out well. Don't expect a repeat performance from me if you mess this up." He looked at Jack. "…I appreciate the help. I'll be finding you again for the next one." Then Pitch disappeared once more.


	11. Pet

Jack dropped into Pitch's lair once more, keeping an eye out for the Hellhounds this time. No sign of them, though Pitch stood near the center of the main area and was holding a squirming rat up by its tail.

"Got a pest problem in here?" Jack asked, alighting near the boogeyman.

"Why, yes, Jack. There seems to be this one irritating pest who keeps coming into my home uninvited, makes a lot of noise and is just generally a nuisance." Pitch responded with a smirk. "Oh, wait, were you referring to the rat? No, it's just food."

"Ha, ha, very clever. But you're not seriously going to eat that, are you?" Jack asked, making a face.

"Me? No, don't be disgusting. This is for my new friend." He walked over to one of the smaller cages and dropped the rat in. "Suppertime, Sara."

"You didn't kidnap anyone, did you… Ahhh!" Jack came over to peer in the cage and recoiled at the sight of its inhabitant. There was a gigantic spider inside, sinking its fangs into the squealing and twitching rat. The thing had to be at least a foot across, it was practically the size of a dinner plate. The rat didn't stand a chance. Jack scrambled away from the cage.

"What, you faced down an entire army of Nightmares without flinching, but one little arachnid bothers you?" Pitch asked gleefully.

"There's nothing little about that thing! What  _is_  that?!" Jack's skin was crawling. He  _hated_ bugs. You never had to worry about bugs in the winter time.

"Theraphosa blondi, or the Goliath Bird-Eating Spider. Poor little thing. I was doing my rounds in South America and one dolt was trying to kill her with a shovel. I've always had a soft spot for spiders; arachnophobia is probably one of the most common fears, after all. So I just couldn't leave her." Pitch patted the cage fondly and opened up the door to it.

"Don't let it out!" Jack leapt into the air and hovered there.

"You're sure you don't want to meet her properly, Jack?" Pitch asked, holding both of his hands to the opening of the cage. One hand apparently wasn't large enough to hold the creature. The tarantula crawled out onto the boogeyman's palms and started using its front legs to brush the bits of rat fur off of itself. "She's actually very gentle, you know. And her bite isn't even deadly or anything."

"Uh, no, thanks, but I- uh, really need to get going. Things to do, yeah. I- I'll come back some other time!" Jack stammered and took off, heading for the exit faster than he ever had before. The sound of Pitch snickering followed him out.


	12. Rescue

Jack was seriously beginning to regret his decision. Jamie and his family had recently come back from a vacation in Hawaii and Jamie had asked him for help. Apparently there was a watch that the kid had accidentally left behind, one that had belonged to his grandfather. Jamie didn't want to think of what his parents would say if they found out that he had lost it, so he had asked Jack if he could fly down really quickly and get it back from the Aqua Hotel on Moloka'i Island. And Jack couldn't say no to Jamie.

Jack hadn't been aware of just how many islands Hawaii had, though. Or just how hot it was this close to the equator. It wasn't as if he could ask for directions, either. He doubted if any of the people here had even heard of Jack Frost, let alone believed in him. He had been flying around the area for hours trying to find the right island, and all the while was beginning to feel worse and worse due to the overbearing heat of the tropical sun.

He was actually starting to get really concerned at this point. Water was trickling down his back and his hand, the usual frost that covered his hoodie and staff melting away. It was getting harder to focus on anything, and his head was spinning.  _I should have asked for Baby Tooth's help. She would have done a better job at this than me._ He thought dazedly, rubbing his eyes.  _This next island's got to be the right one, though._

As he rode the winds towards his destination, a sudden wave of dizziness and nausea swamped Jack. He felt his staff slip out of his suddenly weak hand, and there was a roaring in his ears as spots danced across his vision. By the time Jack regained his wits, he was already plummeting out of the sky into the brilliant blue sea below. Normally, when he touched water, it would immediately freeze solid. Not this time, apparently. Jack plunged into the ocean. Water closed over his head and Jack felt a rush of panic and dread.  _No, no, please no, this can't be happening, not again, no, no!_ His thoughts scattered like leaves on the wind and all he could think was that he had to get out.

Jack desperately tried to claw his way to the surface, but he never had learned how to swim and his waterlogged clothing was dragging him down. The wind couldn't reach him beneath the surface, and his icy powers seemed to have deserted him. His lungs were aching for air, but he couldn't seem to get enough energy into his limbs to even try to thrash upwards any more. Everything was going dark.  _I'm going to drown again. I wonder if Manny will bring me back as a summer spirit this time?_  He thought numbly.  _Or maybe I can't die and I'll just be lost down here forever…_

Something plunged into the water above him. A chain? It coiled around him and hauled him rapidly out of the ocean. He felt a hand grab him roughly by the front of his shirt and he was suddenly staring into a pair of blazing yellow eyes.

"What possessed you to come to the blasted tropics?!" Pitch demanded angrily, holding Jack up by the collar and shaking him.

Jack coughed up salt water, spewing it all down Pitch's arm. The boogeyman looked disgusted. "What're you doing here?" the boy croaked.

"I'm saving your miserable hide is what I'm doing! You were putting off enough fear for me to sense a continent away!" Pitch snapped. "And if you tell the Guardians about this, I swear I will come back and drown you myself!" Nightmare sand wrapped around Jack and he suddenly found himself in a blessedly cold snowbank in the middle of a frozen plain. Antarctica, judging from the penguins nearby. Jack still felt very woozy.  _Did that really just happen?_  He wondered, flopping backwards into the snow.

As if in response, Pitch appeared nearby, shaking water off of his arm and muttering invectives about snow-brained winter spirits. He dropped a waterlogged staff on Jack and vanished again.


	13. Aftermath

It had taken Jack half a day of lying in the snow before he felt back to his normal self and was able to ride the wind in a straight line once more. Then, first things first, he went to the Tooth Palace to request help in retrieving Jamie's watch. Then off to Burgess to reassure Jamie. He left out the part about falling in the ocean, though. No need to make the kid feel guilty over Jack's bad decision. Just let him know that there'd be a bit of a delay in the watch's return, nothing to worry about. He'd been roped into a massive snowball fight shortly afterward. Well, okay, maybe he instigated it…

The kids had all headed home and the sun was starting to go down when Jack started pondering. He didn't actually know what Pitch liked, did he? Well, aside from scaring kids and…  _spiders._ Jack shuddered a little at the thought. Deciding that it was the thought that counted, in any case, Jack decided to go visit one of his believers who happened to be the daughter of a baker. Everyone liked food, right?

Thus armed with a bag of chocolate-chip cookies, Jack ventured once more into the lair of the boogeyman, as night fell. "Hey Pitch! I come bearing gifts!" he called.

"I'm in no mood to deal with you, Frost. Get out." Pitch's cold voice echoed from somewhere within the maze-like place, though there was no sign of him.

"I'm just coming to say thanks."

"Don't mention it.  _Ever."_ the growled reply came, with the boogeyman still not showing his face.

"Jeez, what's got you all in a snit? Don't worry, I'm not going to tell North or anyone. Now are you going to take these cookies or not?"

"…If you don't leave, I'm going to put Sara in your hair."

"You wouldn't."

"I'm taking her out of the cage now…" And sure enough, Jack could see the tall man now, opening up one of the many cages.

Jack let out a strangled sound and launched himself across the room, slamming the cage back shut and sealing the lock with ice. "Don't  _do_  that!" Jack gasped, snatching his hand back from the metal. "It's not… What happened to you?"

Pitch's normally pale grey skin had an angry red tinge to it, and the skin on his nose was peeling. The boogeyman gave Jack a withering look. "The equatorial sun doesn't agree with my nature any more than it does yours, Jack. I'm sunburnt. Now, if you're finished gawking,  _go away_."

Jack paused for a moment, caught between feeling responsible for the condition and finding it hilarious. The latter won out, and Jack guffawed. "You look ridiculous."

"Yes, I'll have you know that I blame you entirely. Next time, don't expect any help. Although I may drop by with popcorn, just to watch you suffer," Pitch replied, herding Jack towards the exit. He plucked the cookies out of the boy's grasp. "I'll be taking these, you don't deserve them. Now, out you go." Nightmare sand coiled underneath Jack's feet and flung him unceremoniously out of the lair.


	14. Holiday

Jack crept into the boogeyman's lair, footsteps soft as snowfall. He wasn't sure exactly how aware Pitch was of what happened in the caverns all the time, but he was curious to see if he could sneak in without being noticed. It was daylight, so Pitch probably wasn't very active right now, right?

He was rather disappointed when he heard a soft growl from a side passage and found himself staring down the snout of a Hellhound once more. Jack frowned and raised his staff, pondering if he could freeze the thing solid before it could sound the alarm. Instead of leaping at him, though, the beast just raised its ears and cocked its head to one side, as if considering Jack. After a moment, it snorted and settled back down on its haunches, the picture of canine indifference.

 _Well, that's odd._  Jack thought, edging past the passage cautiously. Maybe the hounds had gotten used to him or something. He didn't bother dwelling on it too much; he had other things to do. So much space, so little time.

* * *

Jack surveyed his handiwork in the lair with pride, then took his staff and ran it over the bars of one of the empty cages with a resounding series of clacks. Within moments, Pitch emerged from one of the tunnels, looking wary. Surprise and confusion flitted over the man's face as he surveyed what had been done to the place. Drifts of soft white snow lay over the ground, and frost gilded the arches and columns, making them sparkle. A huge pine tree made of ice stood in the center of it all, with a string of chintzy Christmas lights strung around it. Pitch was speechless for a moment, then his eyes fell on the grinning boy who stood in the middle of it all. "Frost, what the devil have you done to my home?!"

"I came by to wish you a Merry Christmas, of course! I even hand-delivered you a white one!" Jack replied, looking pleased with himself. "It's a little early, I suppose, only Christmas Eve and all, but I do have a pretty packed schedule around this time of the year."

Jack could actually see the muscles flex in the boogeyman's jaw, that was how hard Pitch clenched his teeth. "Oh, how  _considerate_ of you. Tell me, did you also bring a present? Perhaps a large bag of salt to rub in my wounds?"

Jack's brow furrowed. "What?"

"Are you really so idiotic as to not realize that reminding me of my enemy's day of glory might be a bit ill-thought out, Jack?" Pitch asked, the shadows around him starting to writhe. "If I had won against the Guardians back then, and on the day that would have been Easter, I invited you to celebrate All Hail Our Dark Lord Day, how would  _you_  feel?"

"I'd probably think that you were really terrible at coming up with names for holidays," Jack replied with a cheeky grin.

Pitch just glared silently at Jack, though the shadows settled back down.

"Alright, fine, maybe this wasn't the best idea. But come on. It's Christmas! No one should be alone on Christmas!"

"...Alone? Whatever made you think I would be spending the day alone?"

"The spider doesn't count, Pitch."

"I don't know, she seems to have far more brains than  _most_  of the people I interact with," Pitch retorted. "But that's not what I'm referring to. Have you really never heard of Krampus?"

"Cramp whats?"

Pitch grinned. "Oh, it's only the best part of this horrid time of the year. Not as widespread as Saint Nick, unfortunately, but there are a few lovely areas of the world where naughty children don't just get punished with coal… And that's where I get to come in." Jack could have sworn he heard Pitch sigh happily. "Actually, I could probably get started around now. Oh, and Jack? Never do this again." Pitch faded away after one final parting glare.

* * *

 

Pitch returned to his lair just as dawn started to break on Christmas morning. He was in a good mood, having had a wonderful evening of terror. The old fool North had been angry at him, as usual, but he couldn't chase off Pitch permanently, not when the children's belief invited him so  _enticingly._  Shedding his shadowy disguise of Krampus, Pitch stepped into his home. Jack's little mess was still there, though the boy himself was long gone. Pitch scowled. He ghosted over the snow towards the tree, leaving no footprints behind.

The tree was rather incredibly detailed, Pitch could actually see the individual needles on it. How strange that that boy had such an eye for detail. Pitch rested a hand on one of the branches, and nightmare sand swirled over the tree, blowing out the tiny christmas lights and warping the icy sculpture into something dark and looming. Pitch stepped back, admiring his handiwork. Tomorrow, he would have to get rid of this mess before it melted and flooded the entire place. But for now, maybe he could just enjoy the sight. Pitch smiled and softly hummed Carol of the Bells.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Krampus is basically the anti-Santa Claus. Legends of him exist in alpine European countries, where he shows up to torment or drag away naughty children around Christmas time. I figured this would fall under Pitch's jurisdiction. He doesn't actually drag them off, though, just scares the living daylights out of them.


	15. Tea Time

This time when Jack went into Pitch's lair, he was greeted by something rather different than the usual. Landing on the stairs, a hand suddenly descended on his shoulder. He looked up to see the disconcertingly wide smile of the boogeyman. "Why, hello, Jack. How nice of you to drop by." The hand on his shoulder tightened a little and he found himself being steered off into a side passage where a collection of run-down and rust-stained furniture clustered together in some semblance of a living room. "Come in, sit down, I'll make some tea," Pitch said, releasing Jack.

Jack's near-perpetual smile was gone, and he stared at Pitch as if the man had grown an extra head. "What's going on?"

"Whatever do you mean?" Pitch asked innocently. "Can't I warmly welcome a friend into my home?"

"Stop it, you're being really creepy."

"How nice of you to say. I'm flattered. I'll be right back, go ahead and take a seat." Pitch gestured at the chairs, then vanished.

Jack spent a moment wondering if he should run far, far away and never return. Curiosity got the better of him, however, and he crept up to one of the threadbare recliners, prodding it with his staff to see if it was something designed to devour him. Some of the stains on the upholstery did look rather suspicious… The chair showed no signs of being anything other than an inanimate object, however. Jack sat down, bracing himself for something terrible to happen. Nothing.

Well, now, this was just starting to be disappointing. Pitch returned with two steaming mugs and handed one to Jack, whereupon it immediately stopped steaming. Jack peered at the rapidly-cooling liquid inside, pondering what sorts of poisons were in it. "Okay, Pitch, enough games, what do you want?"

The gregarious smile slid off of Pitch's face, replaced with his usual sardonic smirk. "Oh, maybe I just enjoy watching you squirm," he replied, sinking into a chair of his own and sipping at his tea. "But, if you really insist on me having ulterior motives…"

"Here we go." Jack rested his chin in one hand, the picture of attention.

"I'd like you to help me get revenge on the Guardians."

Jack stared at him for a second, frozen. "…Alright, Pitch, I'm going to need you to tell me what sort of mushrooms you ate recently."

"Don't be stupid. I'm not asking to choose between the Guardians and me." Pitch said, rolling his eyes. "Mainly because you and I both know very well on which side of that line your loyalties would lie, if it came down to it." The boogeyman added in a flat tone.

Jack looked mildly uncomfortable. "Pitch, I-"

Pitch shook his head. "Don't make excuses for who you are, Jack. You are a Guardian, and that's that. Besides, I just want some help with pranks. You're good at that type of thing, and I figure that I can at least torment them if I can't destroy them. Would you really deny a poor old man a few simple joys in his life?"

Jack snorted. "Don't play the sympathy card, Pitch. You're about as frail as granite."

"I didn't hear a no…"

"Well, what have you got in mind?" Jack asked with a crooked grin.


	16. Prank War, Part 1

"I'm worried about Jack," Tooth began, looking at the other Guardians that had gathered up at North's home. "He's been spending a lot of time around Pitch; it can't be good for him."

North shrugged. "Pitch has not hurt Jack. He seems to be fond of boy."

"That's not necessarily a good thing, North. You didn't come with us last time, you didn't see them  _playing._ It was beyond creepy," Bunnymund said with a shudder.

"Come now, is good that Pitch is having harmless fun, yes? Better than threatening children."

"What if it's just another one of his plans? What if he's plotting to corrupt Jack or something?" Bunnymund asked.

"You don't trust Jack?" North replied.

"Jack is fine, it's Pitch I don't trust. Leopards don't change their spots so easy."

"Jack's already a bit, well, mischievous." Tooth said, fluttering her wings nervously. "And he's the youngest one of us. What if Pitch is a bad influence on him?"

"Sandy, what do you think?"

The short golden man shrugged. Above his head, a miniature Jack flew around carefreely, zipping this way and that.

"You are right. Even if we think that Pitch is a problem, Jack is free-spirited. How would we stop him from doing as he likes?" North agreed with the silent Guardian's sentiment.

"Well, there's gotta be something. It's not right, a Guardian spending time with that whacker."

From further inside the workshop, there was a series of muffled booming noises, followed by familiar maniacal cackling. Moments later, a soot-covered yeti came storming into the room, smelling strongly of onions. The creature garbled grumpily and waved its arms around. It took North a moment to decipher the message. It seemed as though someone had set off a series of firecrackers, smoke bombs, and stinkbombs throughout the workshop,  _and_ that all the elves appeared to be hopped up on sugar, only adding to the utter chaos. "And you are telling me  _Pitch_  did all this?"

"Yerblag!" the yeti grumbled.

The Guardians all stared at each other for a moment as a single disquieting thought occurred to them all.  _What if it wasn't Pitch corrupting Jack they had to worry about? What if it was Jack who was being a bad influence on Pitch?_


	17. Prank War, Part 2

The moment of shock passed, and the Guardians all scrambled out the door. Bunnymund started barking out orders, fumbling for his boomerangs. "Harmless fun, huh? Sandy, you corral the elves! I'll go make sure the toys are alright. Tooth, you-"

As the Guardians charged down the hallway, they passed a cabinet and a shadowy hand shot out from under it to grab Toothiana's ankle and yank her downwards. The fairy gave a startled little yelp, and North brought down his cutlass on the appendage with a yell, severing the shadow from the darkness. It dissolved into a pile of nightmare sand, and Pitch's laughter echoed around them. "Did you really think I was done with you, Guardians?"

"Pitch! Show yourself!" North shouted.

"Oh, so hostile, North. Can't you take a little joke?" Pitch, mounted on a Nightmare, appeared at the end of the hallway. "Well, catch me if you can!" With a whoop, he kicked the Nightmare into a charge and raced down the corridor, away from the Guardians.

They gave chase, following Pitch through the chaotic workshop, veering to avoid piles of giggling elves and disgruntled yetis. The Nightmare charged over worktables, up walls, across wide gaps, leapt over obstacles and seemed to effortlessly avoid the attempts of the Guardians to hurl ammunition at Pitch. The boogeyman cackled and shot insults back at them. "Gotten all slow and complacent, have we? Give you lot a few years without a crisis and you all lose your touch! Frankly, I'm disappointed." He jerked to one side to avoid one of Sandy's whips.

"We'll see who's laughing when we catch you!" Bunnymund growled, putting on a burst of speed.

Pitch spurred the Nightmare through one of the doorways out of the workshop, the Guardians hot on his heels. "Now, Jack!" he cried.

"Jack?" Tooth repeated. The Guardians looked off to one side to see their pale companion smile and wave cheerily, then tap his staff on the ground. The ground below them turned to sheer ice. Sandy and Tooth, floating above it, didn't have any problems, but North and Bunnymund weren't so lucky. They both lost their footing and fell backwards onto the ice and the momentum from their chase sent them sliding uncontrollably forwards. The ice they were on suddenly went into a dip and they found themselves zipping along a long, slick track full of bends, corkscrews, and even loop-the-loops.

"AAAAAHH!"

The track seemed to go on for ages, plunging into dizzying drops and nausea-inducing bends, before it suddenly tilted upwards and abruptly stopped. The two Guardians went flying off the ramp at top speeds and hurtled through the air.

"AAAAAAAHHHHHH!"

 _Whump!_  They both landed in a soft pile of snow. The two holiday spirits lay half-buried in the snowdrift, groaning. "What happened?" North asked dazedly, as the world seemed to spin around him.

Pitch was suddenly standing over them, smirking. "That's a good look for you two. You should really be blindsided and knocked flat on your back more often."

Bunnymund growled. "Why was Jack helping  _you?"_

Pitch's smirk widened into a nasty grin, and he leaned closer to the Guardian, eyes glittering with malice. "Maybe your dear boy has finally seen reason and decided to join me. Maybe humiliating you two is the first step we're going to take before blanketing the world in cold and dark," he hissed. A snowball suddenly smacked into the side of Pitch's head and he was sent sliding across the ice and ended up in an undignified heap in another snowbank. "Okay, fine. Maybe he just agreed because he thought it would be funny," Pitch added, his voice muffled by the snow.

"Ding ding ding! We have a winner," Jack landed near the others, followed by Sandy and Tooth. Sandy looked rather amused, Tooth a bit more concerned. Jack grinned, leaning on his staff. "Sorry, guys, it was too good to resist. You should've seen the look on your face, Bunny."

"Oh, you are just  _hilarious_ ," Bunnymund muttered, clambering to his feet. He glared at both Jack and Pitch, the latter of whom was also getting up and brushing snow off himself. "You realize, of course, that this means war."

Pitch sneered. "Give me your best shot, rabbit. I'll be waiting." He looked back up the slope to the workshop. "Though first, you may want to make sure that the elves don't cause  _too_  much damage to that place, hmm?" With a chuckle, the boogeyman slipped back into the shadows.


	18. Prank War, Part 3

Bunnymund was, of course, the one to fire the first retaliatory shot. Jack managed to track him down just as the Pooka scrambled out of the lair with a Hellhound hot on his heels. A quick blast of ice solved that problem rather handily, though.

"I really  _hate_ dogs." Bunnymund muttered, skidding to a halt and glancing back at the frozen canine. Then his gaze flicked to Jack. "You sure you hit the right critter, mate? You seemed pretty chummy with Pitch before."

"You know I never miss." Jack replied with a smile. "And you know, holding a grudge like that is bad for you. So, did you get him?"

The Easter Guardian grinned, holding up a bucket in one hand. "Oh, I got him."

A shriek of rage echoed from deep within the dark cavern, and the Nightmare King emerged from his lair, his face twisted with anger and his eyes blazing with hatred as shadows rose from the ground all around him. The effect was, unfortunately, rather spoiled by the now brilliantly pink clothing that covered his body. "What have you  _done_?!"

Jack just stared for an instant before bursting out laughing. "Pitch, you- ahahahaha! Oh my gosh! That- I- pffft!" He held up a hand to Bunnymund. "That is a masterpiece!"

The Easter Bunny high-fived Jack, chortling. "You should keep that outfit, Pitch. It looks great on ya."

Pitch snarled. "You'll pay for this, rabbit." The shadows wrapped around him and he was gone.

* * *

It took Bunnymund a while before he noticed that some of his eggs were this odd, off-white, greyish colour. They blended in quite well with the others. It was only when he picked one up to inspect it did the thing crack open and spew this awful, slimy, black  _thing_  onto the Guardian's hand, where it clung and made a gut-wrenching, nails-on-a-chalkboard screech. Bunnymund shrieked and flailed his hand, flinging the creature off to smack against a wall and disappear in a puff of nightmare sand. For a moment the Pooka stood still, panting, as chills ran up and down his spine. Then he stared around and experienced a sinking feeling in his gut as he noticed more and more of the false eggs among his own. He would have to get all of them before sending them out for any kids to find. Would they all have those creepy things inside? Bunnymund shuddered.

"Pitch," he growled.

* * *

Sandy's contribution to the war was somewhat more subtle. Pitch didn't realize until he had spent a few nights sure that he heard muffled laughter whenever he turned around to leave the room of a child he had spooked. He was certain he had gotten all of that blasted bunny's dye off of his robes… He twisted to peer at his back and caught a glimmer of golden sand. "What?"

A quickly fetched mirror gave him a better look at the glittering words written across his back. Even in reverse, they were easy to read:  _KICK ME_.

"Oh, how mature, Sanderson." Pitch muttered, wiping away the dreamsand.

* * *

Jack was the one who first discovered Pitch's revenge on the silent Guardian, flying up to greet Sandy on his nightly rounds. "Hey, Sandy, how're the dreams ton- whoa!" The small man had a clump of nightmare sand floating near the front of his face, forming the shape of a large, ridiculous-looking black handlebar mustache.

Sandy looked at Jack in puzzlement, a question mark over his head.

"Um, you just have a little something here." Jack said, rubbing a hand over his own upper lip. When Sandy went to touch the black sand, it suddenly flowed away from his hand, reforming into a pair of bushy, glowering eyebrows. "Pfft-! Uh, yeah, you got it." Jack said, biting back a snicker.

It took almost a month before Sandy got rid of the thing, during which it also took the form of sideburns, large, dorky-looking glasses, an array of piercings, and a goatee. By the end of it, the Guardians were pretty sure that Sandy was aware of the thing's presence and was just enjoying the joke as much as the rest of them.

* * *

It had taken North a while to amass the materials necessary for his prank, but it was well worth it to hear the commotion going on within the boogeyman's lair. Apparently, dumping a giant pile of squeaky dog-toys into a cavern full of hounds was a sure recipe for hilarity, especially when the cavern belonged to someone as dramatic as Pitch.

"No, you may  _not_ play with toys given by my enemy, don't even think about it!"

_*squeak* *squeak* *squeak*_

"Miserable beasts! Stop it!"

_*squeak* *squeak* *squeak*_

"This is not behavior suiting creatures of the night!"

_*squeak* *squeak* *squeak*_

"I command you to stop this immediately!"

_*squeak* *squeak* *squeak*_

"Grah!"

* * *

Tooth had done her best to avoid the insanity that seemed to be gripping everyone else. She had more important things to worry about than having some kind of bizarre contest with Pitch. Oh, boys and their egos.

Well, that was until she heard a frantic peeping noise from around the corner of one of her towers. Tooth gasped and sped towards the sound.  _If he's harmed any of my girls, Pitch is going to be losing more than just one tooth!_  Tooth thought angrily, and was unfortunately distracted enough to fly straight into the webbing that had been strung across one of the archways. The black stuff clung like glue to her, and she was stuck fast along with a handful of her mini-fairies, the ones that had been making the distressed noises. "Pitch! Let us go right now!"

"Oh, my, Toothiana. Didn't anyone teach you any manners?" Pitch was reclining in the black, silky strands nearby. "You're supposed to say  _please_."

"Pitch, I'm serious!" Tooth snapped, thrashing against the webs.

"Ah. I really wouldn't do that, if I were you. You'll be bringing them down on you, with all this movement." Pitch said, his eyes flicking to something balanced on the top of the web.

Tooth froze for a moment, feeling a chill run down her back.  _No, Pitch wouldn't…_ She craned her head to look up, expecting to see something with far too many legs bearing down on her. Instead, there were a series of teetering buckets perched on the top of the webs, and the moment of her head was enough to send them tipping over. Gallons of water dumped over Tooth, soaking her to the skin.

Pitch howled with laughter. "Oh, the look on your face was priceless." He met Tooth's searing glare with a smirk. "Don't be like that, my dear. It was just a joke. Look, your little helpers are even dry. Aren't I considerate?" He snickered once more before fading into the shadows. The webs faded with him, releasing the dripping Guardian and her mini-fairies.

"Oh, it is on."

* * *

Everyone agreed never to speak of what Tooth did in return for that one. Pitch didn't come out of his lair for a week.

* * *

Jack was the one who finally brought an end to the prank war, at least temporarily, by somehow managing to create a series of ambush-happy stormclouds, one for everyone. Then, when they were least expecting it, they were treated to their own personal little blizzard, or pelted with inexplicable snowballs, or just startled by a sudden rumble of thunder. After three days of that, the chilled group agreed to a truce for now. It was getting to the end of September by now, anyway, and North, Jack, Bunnymund and Pitch were starting to get busier as their time to shine approached. The grudges would have to be laid aside for later.


	19. Nightmare

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Mood whiplash ahoy! This is not a funny chapter, sorry.

Pitch paused when he felt a touch of fear that was as cold as winter.  _What has Jack Frost gotten himself into now?_ The boogeyman wondered, frowning.  _If he's expecting me to pull him out of another metaphorical or literal fire…_ But no, this was a different kind of fear, softer, more muffled. This was sleeping fear, a nightmare.

Pitch had been growing stronger again, thriving off of the fear and anticipation of those who he celebrated Halloween with. It wasn't surprising that his Nightmares, in turn, were growing stronger and sneakier as well. But for one to sneak under Sanderson's nose and infect a Guardian? This he had to see.

* * *

Jack was draped over a tree branch, limbs hanging bonelessly over each side of it and his cheek pillowed against the frost-tinged wood. Even the way he slept was completely ridiculous. But the fear… Jack's fear was utterly delectable. Crisp as new-fallen snow, sharp and biting as the north winds that the boy rode. It was even more of a treat for it being so rare. Pitch sometimes got a taste of it when he startled Jack during their games, but for the most part the winter spirit was infuriatingly fearless. Having so much of it available at once was almost overwhelming. Pitch just stood still for a moment, watching the Nightmare and drinking in the heady surges of fright that the boy was giving off.

The nightmares started off small and simple, almost mundane, with Jack falling through the air, stretching, reaching for a staff that was just barely out of his reach. Then the dream shifted, getting darker. An older Jamie walking through Jack. The other Guardians watching and shaking their heads in disappointment. Jack made a soft sound, almost a whimper. The fear was thicker now, with a different nuance to it. A bitter, insecure twist. Pitch couldn't suppress a little shiver of delight. Jack was so good at covering up everything with smiles and laughter, and seeing the Guardian face a buried facet of himself was just fascinating. Fear brought out the most interesting parts of a person, in Pitch's opinion.

The Nightmare wasn't done yet. Again, the scene shifted. This time Jack was sinking, struggling against the icy water that had claimed his life. He couldn't breathe, could barely move. The cold was sapping him of all his strength. Worse, he could see his sister scrambling towards the hole in the ice, screaming his name.

"No, don't… Stay… stay where it's safe!" Jack muttered, though in the nightmare he was screaming his protests into the icy, merciless depths. The girl above him paid no heed, and she got too close to the thin ice that her brother had fallen through. With heart-stopping crack, the ice supporting her gave way and she, too, was plunged into the wintry water. And Jack could do  _nothing._  Nothing but watch as his sister suffered the same fate he did. And then there were other still bodies in the water around Jack. Jamie. Sophie. Other children, ones he couldn't save, ones he couldn't protect, even though he had sworn to. He was helpless, he was useless, he was a failure…

"No, please…" Jack mewled, a sad, pathetic, broken sound. A small drop of frozen water fell off the boy's eyelashes, dropping to shatter on the ground below.

Before Pitch really knew what he was doing, he had wrenched the Nightmare off of the boy, his hand around the creature's neck. "You are  _never_  to touch Jack Frost, do you understand me?" Pitch snarled, fingers tightening around the struggling Nightmare's windpipe. "He. Is. MINE!" The boogeyman's grip tightened too far, and the Nightmare exploded into a shower of nightmare sand.

"Pitch?" Jack was blinking at him sleepily.

For an instant, Pitch was frozen.  _Stupid! Of course such a commotion would wake him up!_  But he couldn't think of anything to say, anything to explain what he was doing. He had no idea how Jack would respond. And all of a sudden, he could feel a twinge of the one fear that brought him no pleasure at all; his own. So Pitch vanished into the shadows without a sound, running away from whatever he would have had to face in those wintry woods.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Pitch. Pitch no. This was supposed to be a fluffy friendship fic, why did you go all creepy and dump drama on it? I cannot take you anywhere, I swear. You ruin everything.


	20. Redress

Pitch paced back and forth in his lair, muttering to himself. "Don't be ridiculous. You are the boogeyman! You are not afraid of what some  _Guardian_  thinks of you! This is stupid!" But every time he thought of interacting with Jack again he felt an irritating, nagging fear creep up on him. What was he supposed to say? What if Jack came to the lair again? Worse, what if he  _didn't_? What if they were enemies again now? The children looked forward to Halloween; Jack was a big part of the draw. The winter spirit certainly lived up to his title of the Guardian of Fun. What if he didn't come anymore? What if he and the Guardians were going to take Halloween away, force Pitch away from the place he had finally managed to carve out for himself? Would he be able to fight them all off?

One of his Hellhounds came creeping out of the shadows to nuzzle up against Pitch reassuringly. The man growled and swatted at it absentmindedly. "I don't need comforting, you miserable beast! Leave!" The creature whined and slinked back into the darkness.

This worrying was going to drive him mad. Pitch gritted his teeth. Avoiding the problem wasn't going to solve a thing. He would have to find out what the situation was eventually. Better to get it over with, and find out if he had to start amassing his forces now, than to leave it until the Guardians came to drive him off again.

This was going to be unpleasant.

* * *

Jack wasn't the easiest person to find at the best of times. Granted, you could generally find him by heading towards the nearest sounds of trouble, but Pitch had slinked past at least three different groups of playing children and there was not a sign of Jack to be seen, aside from the cold weather. Where else could he be?

A thought occurred to the boogeyman. Considering the nature of that last nightmare, he'd think that it was the last place Jack would have wanted to go, but the frost spirit had surprised Pitch before.

Sure enough, Jack was on the lake from which he had been born, skating over the ice alone. Pitch stepped out of the shadows. "Jack."

The Guardian stopped abruptly to turn and look at the Nightmare King.

Pitch held up his hands in what he hoped was a disarming gesture. Not being threatening wasn't exactly his area of expertise. "I came to apologize. My subjects can be… unruly. I didn't intend for you to be put through that sort of experience." Pitch said, staring fixedly at a point somewhere past Jack. He couldn't meet the Guardian's eyes. "It won't happen again. …I'll be going, now." He turned to leave.

"Hey. First, mind telling me what was the deal with the 'mine!' bit?" Jack asked.

Pitch paused, and glanced over his shoulder. "Obviously I'm the only one allowed to frighten you, Jack. I cannot abide the thought of someone else feasting on your fear. That's  _my_ job."

"That's pretty creepy, you know."

"I'm supposed to be creepy. It's part of the job description." Pitch said with a shrug.

"I'm hurt, though, really I am. So I'm just part of your buffet? I thought we had something special, Pitch," Jack clutched at his chest as though he had been wounded, a wicked glint in his eye.

It felt as if a tight knot in Pitch's stomach had suddenly come undone. It took an instant longer for him to respond than it normally would, the sudden feeling of relief taking him by surprise. "Oh, but I don't think you understand how delicious your fear is, Jack. It's so sweet and cold, like ice cream." Pitch replied with a smirk of his own. He turned back around to face Jack again, sighing dramatically. "It's really such a pity there's so little of it. Besides, what else do we share, aside from perhaps a common joy in winding up the Easter Bunny?"

"Well, of course. Bunnymund does have the best reactions to pranks. He gets worked up so easy. And there's Halloween, too."

"Oh, so you're intending to pull your Guardian antics on me this year and ruin all my fun again? How am I supposed to properly traumatize the children with you hanging around?" Pitch replied exasperatedly.

"Well, you could always try to stop me from showing up. I mean, you'd fail, but you could always  _try_ ," Jack said with a cocky grin.

"Don't tempt me, Frost," Pitch retorted. "I did what I came here for. I'll leave you to your skating."

"Hey, have you ever tried it? Ice skating?" Jack asked.

"No. It's not exactly something you'd expect the boogeyman to do, is it?"

"Do you want to?"

"I... I have better things to do than flail around on ice," Pitch said.

"You're just scared you'll fall flat on your butt," Jack taunted.

"If you think some schoolyard shaming tactic is enough to manipulate me into doing what you want, you are sadly mistaken."

"Alright, alright. If you change your mind though, the offer still stands."

"Very well." Pitch said with a shrug as he stepped back into the shadows.


	21. Waking Up

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is kind of the last two chapters from Jack's perspective. Which I wrote because of reasons.

_No! Please no! This can't be happening! Not to them, please! This wasn't supposed to happen!_ Jack screamed into the icy waters of the lake, but to no avail. He had been weak. He had been useless. He had been unable to save even one child from the depths and now it was too late. They were gone, and nothing,  _nothing,_  could bring them back.

And suddenly the world was torn apart and everything dissolved into a riot of half-focused images and unintelligible sounds. Slowly a rage-filled voice became audible over the cacophony, and Jack could make out someone snarling his name. "-Jack Frost, do you understand me? He is  _MINE!"_

Jack jerked into wakefulness, completely disoriented. He opened his eyes to see Pitch standing next to him, glaring poisonously at a fistful of black sand that was trickling through his fingers. "Pitch?"

The boogeyman flinched and turned wide yellow eyes on him for a split second, before suddenly vanishing.

"Wha-" Jack began, before the memories of the nightmare came flooding back and the image of Jamie's blankly staring eyes struck Jack like a blow to the stomach. He gasped and clung to his branch like a drowning man would cling to a piece of driftwood.  _No, not the kids,_  Jack thought, gulping against the nausea rising in his throat and blinking back the tears burning in his eyes.  _I failed them. I'm supposed to look after them!_

The last of the sleep that had fogged his mind finally cleared away and it occurred to Jack that he wasn't in the lake, and there weren't any kids around. It had just been a nightmare. Just a bad dream, right? Jamie and Sophie and everyone, they were all still alive. No one had drowned. It was okay. He clutched the tree for a few moments longer, until his arms finally stopped shaking and his breathing slowed from frantic panting to something more manageable. It was okay, he told himself.

He had to go see the kids. Right now. It was the middle of the night, they would be asleep, but he had to at least make sure they were safe in their beds. He had to wash away the image of those small, still bodies out of his brain.

* * *

Only after Jack had checked up on all the kids in Burgess and made each one of their windows a work of art with his frost did he finally start to calm down. It was okay. They were all fine. He was tempted to go wake Jamie up and talk with the kid, but he wasn't sure about his control yet and was pretty sure that abruptly waking Jamie to cling to and cry at would freak the kid out a little. He'd see Jamie in the morning, once he was sure he could meet him with a smile.

In the meantime, though, he had to do  _something_. He was still tingling with nervous energy. He wound up wandering aimlessly, until he finally found himself standing at the edge of the ice of his lake. The one he had been born again from. The one he had drowned in.

Strangely, the sight of it in the predawn light was calming, reassuring. This wasn't the place where he had failed. This was where he had triumphed. This was where he had saved his sister. This was where he had become a Guardian. This was where Pitch had been defeated.

Pitch. The boogeyman had finally resurfaced in his thoughts. What had he been doing there? Well, obviously, he was the Nightmare King, it made sense that he had been around for Jack's worst nightmare. But why? Jack had been under the impression that they were friends of a sort. Had he suffered a relapse? Was this revenge? But surely Pitch would have stuck around to gloat if that were the case. The look he had given Jack had been odd: surprised, almost stricken. And he had been yelling something. Something about Jack being his? What did that even mean?

A faint chill ran down Jack's spine and he knelt suddenly by the lake, swiping a hand over the ice. It smoothed to a mirror-fine sheen, showing his reflection staring back at him. White hair, blue eyes, pale skin, check. No sign of black or yellow, no nightmare sand coiled around his neck. Okay, so he wasn't corrupted or anything, probably. Maybe Pitch hadn't been there? Had he imagined it?

Well, he'd deal with that later, or something. It didn't matter too much right now. The sky was getting lighter now, the sun rising to chase away the night. He still wasn't feeling quite his usual peppy self, and the kids would be getting up soon. He didn't want to miss spending a fun Saturday with them due to being gloomy, so he'd have to calm down and let this go.

Jack stepped onto the ice and pushed off with his foot, gliding effortlessly across the lake. As he swooped and zipped over the frozen surface, he felt the tension that had built up inside him start to slowly bleed away. He loved skating. It was like flying, but different at the same time. There was just him and the ice and the fast, fluid movements. He felt his heart lift as he leapt into a pirouette and landed gracefully once more on the ice. Everything was right with the world again. The sun was shining, the kids were fine, and Jack was having fun.

"Jack."

Aaaaand then Pitch decided to show up. Jack whirled to face the boogeyman, not sure what to expect. The tall man jerkily raised his open hands, standing in a stiff posture that was unlike his usual languid ease. He didn't meet Jack's eyes. He almost looked ashamed. The apology was still a bit of a shock, though. So a Nightmare had gotten away from him? Well, Jack had seen the creatures act of their own accord, even against Pitch before, so it wasn't impossible… Was that the black sand he had seen before?

Now Pitch was trying to run away, without even letting him respond. Typical. Jack wasn't about to let all of his questions go unanswered, though. "Hey. First, mind telling me what was the deal with the 'mine!' bit?"

"Obviously I'm the only one allowed to frighten you, Jack. I cannot abide the thought of someone else feasting on your fear. That's my job."

Oh. That dropped things into place. Pitch seemed to see Jack as his the same way he saw Sara as his. The boogeyman had come across something that he found interesting and laid claim to it, and heaven help anyone who harmed something that was  _his_. That was almost sweet, in a creepy sort of way. Hopefully Pitch wasn't planning on stuffing him in a cage for safekeeping anytime soon, though. "That's pretty creepy, you know."

"I'm supposed to be creepy. It's part of the job description."

Well, no sense in letting the guy think Jack was going to hate him forever. Jack launched back into the teasing that had become customary between them, and he could actually see Pitch relax. Yeah, everything was back to normal now. Jack was even in a good enough mood to offer to teach Pitch how to skate, and he could have sworn there was a split second where Pitch actually wanted to take him up on it. But then the boogeyman lapsed back into his usual prickly refusal. Jack didn't understand why Pitch valued his reputation over fun all the time, but he didn't understand a lot about the boogeyman, really. Although he liked to think that he knew a bit more now.


	22. Mirror

Jack was just passing through one town when, out of the corner of his eye, he saw a tall black shadow slip through one of the windows he was flying past. Jack came to a stuttering stop and whipped back around. Sure enough, there was Pitch, standing in a bathtub and tugging the shower curtain across to hide himself.

"Hey, what are you doing, lurking in someone's bathroom? Being a creeper?" Jack asked, leaning on the windowsill.

"I don't know if someone who's peering into a bathroom through the window is one to talk, Jack. Besides, this is a normal enough place for me; people worry about something lurking behind the shower curtains almost as much as they do things under beds or in closets. Now, hush. This is one of my favorite games."

"Games?" Jack repeated, before he heard voices of several girls coming from outside of the room.

"Come  _on_ , Stacey, it's your turn. You gotta do it."

"Yeah, you're not a chicken or anything, are you?"

"No, it's just… I…"

"Don't be lame. Go on."

A preteen girl stepped through the doorway, chewing her lower lip. After a moment's hesitation and a pleading look shot through to whoever was standing outside, she closed the door. Facing the mirror, her back to Pitch and Jack, she flicked off the light.

"Bloody M-mary," she whispered. The girl looked terrified. Jack could see Pitch's smile widen.

"You're not gonna jump out at her, are you? She's already really scared," Jack hissed.

"I know what I'm doing, Jack. Don't you trust me?" the boogeyman asked, grinning.

"Of course not," Jack replied with a snort.

"B-bloody Mary," the girl whispered again, unable to hear the conversation going on behind her.

"Clever boy. But I can't have you interfere." Pitch flicked his hand and shadows silently shut the window, flipping the latch and trapping Jack on the outside of the house. "Just sit tight."

"Bloody… Mary!" the girl whimpered a third time, flinching away from the mirror and squeezing her eyes shut. After a moment, she peeked out again. Nothing. She sighed with relief and flicked the lights back on. It was only when she opened the door did Pitch act, slipping out from behind the curtain and flinging a fistful of nightmare sand through the doorway.

There was suddenly a flurry of screams and shrieks from the other girls. "Stacey, y-your eyes!"

"Bloody Mary got Stacey!"

"She'll get us too now!"

Jack heard the girls scramble away, screaming for their parents. Stacey just stood in the doorway, looking confused. Pitch threw back his head and cackled gleefully before fading into the shadows to reappear on the windowsill near Jack, looking contented.

"…That was actually pretty nice of you, Pitch," Jack said.

"Nice? So terrifying children is nice now, is it?" Pitch asked, leaning against the building. "It was simply more efficient, Jack. This way, I get to feed on the terror of four girls, instead of just one."

"Suuuure, Pitch. Whatever you say," Jack replied.


	23. Lessons Learned

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've put in some art for this chapter done by Fanartdrawer; requested by my friend Nightpounce. It can also be found on tumblr at <http://fanartdrawer.tumblr.com/post/91885239663/illustration-for-a-home-for-fear-chapter-23>

It was dark. And cold. And Daniel was scared.

It had seemed like a good idea at the time. His mom was being completely unreasonable. She expected him to spend his whole Saturday to do homework and clean his room, even do the dishes! It was barbaric. So he'd packed up a set of clothes and a couple of chocolate bars in his backpack and ran away. Anywhere had to be better than  _here._

Well, so he thought. But the sun started to go down, and it started getting cold outside. He had headed into the woods at first, knowing that if he stuck to the streets, he'd probably be spotted and brought back home right away. He hadn't realized just how similar one tree looked to another, though, and once he had gone off the path it had been impossible to find his way back. He was completely lost.

Daniel rested against a tree, trying and failing to keep calm as night fell around him and the wind picked up, making eerie moaning noises through the woods. This wasn't fun anymore. He wanted to go  _home_.

There was a sudden snapping sound to his right, as if someone had stepped on a twig. Daniel flinched and jerked around to stare in that direction. He could just make out the silhouette of a tall, thin figure through the gloom. A pair of inhumanly yellow eyes met his own.

Daniel closed his eyes with a whimper.  _It's not real, it'll be gone when I open my eyes, it's not real._ He peered out again. The figure was still there, just standing still, watching him, but it was several feet closer now. Daniel screamed and whirled around to flee, dashing desperately through the forest.

Several times the menacing  _thing_  appeared off to his left or right, forcing the boy to veer off in the opposite direction. And every time he saw it, it was  _closer_. He could make out more features now, particularly a wide smile that bared a set of worryingly sharp teeth.

And suddenly he was out of the woods, gasping for air and with a series of welts on his hands and face where he had stumbled into branches. He knew where he was now. He could see streetlights and his house now. He had made it. He was safe.

"I'd stay out of the forest at night, boy." A voice hissed in his ear. "Next time, you might not run in the right direction…" He felt a long-fingered hand rest upon his shoulder and Daniel  _shrieked._  Cold, mocking laughter followed him as he bolted to his house and pounded on the door, screaming for his mom. The door opened and the boy was back into a place of light and warmth.

* * *

"You know, you keep helping out kids like that and people might start to think you actually  _like_  them or something." Jack said, swooping out of the sky to land nearby.

"Oh, but Jack, I love children," Pitch replied with a predatory grin, one that showed all of his teeth. "I just can't eat a whole one."

"Hmm. I suppose you do have to watch your figure. They'd have to be terribly fattening, wouldn't they?"

"You have no idea. Though if you're interested, I'm sure we could split the next one I find. I have this great recipe for barbeque sauce…"

Jack snorted and whacked the boogeyman on the arm. "Tempting though it may be, I think that eating kids is something that is frowned upon when you're a Guardian."

"How dreadfully restrictive. Next, you'll be telling me that you're not allowed to jaywalk either."

"I think cannibalism and jaywalking may be a bit far apart on the 'things that are wrong' spectrum."

"Are they? My, my, how complicated morality can be. I'm glad  _I_ don't have to worry about such a thing," Pitch drawled.

"I don't know about that. I think your allowance of unspeakably evil deeds is running out. If you jaywalk many more times, I might be forced to battle you, simply to stop the world from being consumed by darkness."

"I had no idea the fate of the world was teetering on whether or not I obeyed traffic laws. If the balance is  _that_  precarious, maybe I should try making a grab for power again."

"Oh, everyone would be doomed if not for one little thing that you seem to be forgetting…" Jack struck a pose, hands held out from his sides. "Me. I mean, I'm just that amazing. I'd be able to send you packing without breaking a sweat."

"So, the world's only protector is a scrawny teenager who squeals like a little girl when he gets tickled?" Pitch asked with a smirk.

"Hey, that was playing dirty, Pitch."

"I'm the bad guy, remember? Of course I go for the low blows. It's just a shame you grew up in a time period without cameras; just think of what I would have been able to accomplish with a couple of blackmail-worthy childhood photos."

"Oh, that's it, you're going down." Jack said, and launched himself at the boogeyman. Pitch only had an instant to widen his eyes in surprise before he was plowed into and driven to the ground. Then there was an icy arm wrapped under his jaw, putting him in a headlock. Jack was roughly rubbing the knuckles of his free hand over the boogeyman's scalp, mussing his hair beyond repair.

"Blast it, Frost! What are you doing?" Pitch growled, flailing.

"It's a noogie, Pitch. Now, take it like a man!"

"Never!" Pitch cried, dissolving into shadow. Jack fell onto the ground and for a moment everything was silent. Did he scare the boogeyman off? He looked around curiously. No sign of him. Weird. Jack got to his feet, and suddenly he was the one in the headlock as Pitch reappeared and grabbed him. He  _really_ should have gotten used to Pitch's vanishing acts by now, but he apparently hadn't, judging from the startled cry he made.

"Revenge!" Pitch cackled and noogied Jack mercilessly.

"Ow, hey, stoppit! The noogie was my idea, get your own." Jack protested.

"Make me."

"You asked for it." Jack said, producing a handful of snow and hurling it into Pitch's face.

The boogeyman growled and sputtered, releasing the boy to wipe the ice out of his eyes. "You'll pay for that, Frost!"

"You'll have to catch me first!" Jack laughed as he leapt into the air and sped off.


	24. Of Teeth and Arrows

After Jack had joined up with the Guardians, Tooth had made a resolution to get out in the field at least one night a week, so that she could check up on the children under her care and remind herself of the underlying reason why all the Guardians were selected in the first place. Plus, it was really enjoyable to stretch her wings and see the kids; they were adorable, and their teeth were so pretty.

It was on one of these excursions that she heard the familiar bright laugh of the newest Guardian, followed by a dark, snarled threat. Pitch.

Were they playing? Pitch didn't sound like he was joking around. She flitted off to where she had heard the sound, only to see Pitch standing on the roof of a skyscraper, drawing back his hand in a chillingly familiar archery gesture. He was aiming at Jack's back as he flew off.

"Jack, look out!" she screamed just as Pitch released. The winter spirit faltered at the sound of her voice and the black missile struck him right between the shoulder blades. Jack grunted in surprise as darkness coiled around him and he dropped out of the sky like a stone. Tooth gasped and darted forward to catch him, but by the time she had reached the alleyway that Jack had fallen into, there was no sign of him, not in the air or on the ground.

Within seconds she was in front of Pitch, holding him off the ground by the front of his robes with both hands. "Pitch! What have you done to Jack?!" she demanded.

For a second, the boogeyman looked taken aback. Then an expression of sardonic boredom replaced it. "Jack, if you would be so kind as to call off your attack dog?" he called.

"No. I'm dead; you killed me," came the sulky reply, off the side of the building. Tooth felt relief rush through her.

"Come now, you've already died once, and it still didn't stop you from becoming a thorn in my side. Why would this time be any different?" Pitch replied.

"Jeez, insensitive much?" Jack became visible over the edge of the roof. The black sand that had been launched at him had formed a band around his middle, pinning his arms. The remainder of it had formed a handful of long, spindly legs that had skittered up the side of the building and carried him to where Pitch and Toothiana were. "Also, this thing is really freaky."

"Boogeyman, remember?" Pitch replied. Then he glanced back at Tooth. "Now, if you're finished overreacting..."

"I don't think it was an overreaction considering what happened the last time you fired something like that at one of us," Tooth replied angrily.

Pitch gave her a perplexed look. "Well, you may not have noticed, but Jack's abilities are  _ever_  so slightly different from the Sandman's. That trick wouldn't work on him. Or any of the rest of you, for that matter. If it did, don't you think I would have tried to do the lot of you in that way?"

Tooth had to grant him that. She relaxed her grip and let Pitch fall back to the roof. "Let Jack go."

"How am I supposed to get revenge on him that way?"

"I don't care. Now, Pitch."

The boogeyman sighed and snapped his fingers. The sand dissolved, dropping Jack. "Honestly, I don't know why Jack fell in with you lot. You don't seem to have a sense of humor between the four of you."

"I just don't have one as twisted as yours, Pitch."

"Where's the fun in that? Well, not to worry," Pitch smiled and patted the tooth fairy's cheek patronizingly. "If I do decide to start actually harming Guardians again, I assure you, you'll be the  _first_  to know."

Tooth's eyes narrowed. "You-"

"Pitch, stop being a jerk," Jack said, getting to his feet.

The boogeyman snorted. "You may as well ask me to stop breathing, Jack."

"Oh, if you could do that too, that'd be great," Jack replied with a grin.

"You're just asking for it now, brat."

"It's not like you can ever catch me, old man." The Guardian taunted, sticking out his tongue.

"We'll see about that!" A Nightmare reared out of the shadows and Pitch leapt onto its back as Jack took off once more. And then darkness was chasing cold across the sky.

Tooth just hovered where she was for a moment, watching the two of them speechlessly. "What the..." She glanced up at the moon, as if asking for answers from it, but unsurprisingly, none were forthcoming. Finally she decided that the two of them were both insane and that she should get back to her teeth collecting. Thinking too hard about this was just going to give her a headache.


	25. Family

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've put in some art for this chapter done by Fanartdrawer; requested by my friend Nightpounce. It can also be found on tumblr at <http://fanartdrawer.tumblr.com/post/102732768048/fanartdrawer-requested-by-nightpounce>

It had been a fair amount of time since the Guardians had all met up together, two or three years at least. That wasn't to say that they never interacted, Jack visited them all pretty regularly and the other Guardians did venture out of their domains on occasion. It was just that there always tended to be a holiday coming up, or some minor crisis for one of them that had to be resolved, or just too much work for them to all get together.

So when North had called for them all to come to the workshop, Jack had been thrilled. It had been too long, in his opinion.

He should have known better than to think that it only had to do with companionship and not Guardian business.

Still, he had been surprised to see so many serious faces looking at him when he zipped into the room. "Uh, hey guys," he said, trying to recall if he had sent a blizzard through the Warren recently or done something else to warrant a scolding. Nothing but the usual mischief, far as he knew. "What's the deal?"

North's face broke into a welcoming smile. "Jack, I am glad you made it. The deal is that Pitch is gaining believers, very quickly."

"Oh, yeah, that. Isn't it great? He and I are making a bit of a game of it, actually. I'm in the lead right now, of course," Jack said, grinning.

"Jack, what we mean to say is that Pitch is becoming more powerful," Tooth ventured.

"You're telling me. Last time we tussled, I ended up hanging upside down from a traffic light for a half hour." Jack saw Sandy smile a little at that.

"This is coming down to more than your little tiffs with the boogeyman!" Bunnymund said, not looking amused. "Pitch is dangerous, Jack, and we can't let him keep gaining enough power to become a threat."

Jack's smile slid off of his face. He paused for a moment in surprise. "So, what? You want him to just stop doing what he does?"

"Not stop. Just, maybe, focus on the believers he has already?" Tooth said placatingly.

"Yah, Jack. Is good that Pitch has found a place for himself. He has what he wants now, yes? He is believed in. He can be happy with this," North added.

"Pitch will never agree to it," Jack said, shaking his head.

"We ain't asking his permission," Bunnymund muttered.

"So, what are you going to do, then?" Jack asked, whirling on the Pooka. "Are you going to attack him every time he approaches a new kid? Beat him until he agrees to stop? I cannot believe you. He hasn't done anything wrong!"

"He tried to take over the world, ya dill!"

"Okay, fine. He hasn't done anything wrong _recently_ ," Jack snapped. "He's never tried to hurt any of you since his defeat! The worst that happened were _pranks_ , and you gave as good as you got! Come on, this is Pitch, he's pretty much the definition of all bark and no bite!"

Sandy, Tooth, and North glanced at each other, silently wondering exactly how much bite Pitch would have if it were anyone other than Jack trying even half of the things the boy did with the boogeyman.

"He attacks _you_ constantly!" Bunnymund accused.

"That's how he shows _affection!_ " Jack yelled. The Guardians all abruptly fell silent and stared at Jack like he was crazy. Jack took a deep breath to calm himself down. "If Pitch likes you, he'll try to put you in situations where he could easily harm you, but doesn't. It's how he establishes trust or something, I think," Jack tried to explain. The others just looked more confused. "Look, it's not important, alright? I just… If you're going to try this, I'm not going to be any part of it. It's not right." He spun on his heel and rushed out the door, leaving behind the rest of the befuddled Guardians.

* * *

Jack was halfway back to Burgess when the realization of just what he had done struck him like a sack of bricks. He had gone against all the Guardians, for _Pitch_. Suddenly feeling a bit ill, he spiraled down to the nearest town and perched on a telephone wire, crouching and clutching his staff to his chest. What had he done? He had sided with their greatest enemy, against them. What if they threw him out? They were his family. He didn't want to lose them.

Yet, all the same, he couldn't bring himself to go back and agree to their plan. Pitch deserved to try to have as many believers as the rest of them, didn't he? He wasn't a threat, not anymore, right? And other families had arguments all the time, and they stuck together. Maybe, maybe it would work that way for him?

"Jack! Humans coming out of horror movies are such easy targets!" Pitch was suddenly next to him, looking excited. "They jump so high, you have to-" He abruptly stopped. "You're afraid, Jack."

Jack dragged his hand down his face in exasperation. "Not now, Pitch."

"You're… afraid of what the Guardians think of you?" Pitch continued, looking confused. Suddenly his eyes narrowed in anger and his lips curled back from his teeth in a snarl. "Have they mistreated you? I swear I'll-"

"What? No!" Jack leapt to his feet, holding up his hands. The _last_ thing he needed right now was for Pitch to attack the Guardians. "No, nothing like that. It's nothing. Don't worry."

Pitch faltered and frowned. "If you say so."

"I do. Besides, I didn't know you cared." Jack said, managing to pull off a teasing grin.

"If they hold your loyalty so securely, then they'd better well treat you properly. Otherwise it's just insulting that you chose them over me," Pitch replied with a shrug. "Besides, who am I to turn down an opportunity to harass the Guardians?"

"Ah, we come down to the main reason."

"Of course. Wouldn't it be just great if they did something terrible to alienate you and then we annihilated them all together?"

Jack snorted. "Keep dreaming, Pitch."

"See, there's that blasted loyalty again. It's really such a shame…" Pitch said with a dramatic sigh. "Anyway, horror movies. You should be good at sending a chill down people's spine, right? Would you like to come have some fun?"

Jack considered the offer for a second. Tempting though it was, perhaps being spotted in Pitch's company directly after he had just taken the boogeyman's side over the Guardians would be a bad idea. "Some other time."

Pitch shrugged. "Your loss."

* * *

It took Jack a couple more hours of worrying before he decided that he had better try talking to the others again. Letting something like this fester just seemed like a bad idea.

He was surprised, coming into the workshop once more, to see all of the Guardians still there, gathered around a table. He would have thought they would have gone their separate ways. He hadn't planned on facing _all_ of them right away. Taking a deep breath, he stepped into the room and began. "Guys, look, I-"

North held up a hand to stop Jack. "No, Jack. We should apologize."

Jack blinked. "What?"

"You were right about Pitch and Halloween. He's been different since then, kind of. We never thought that he could have a place in the world we protected, and we were wrong." Tooth said. "You knew him better than we did. We should trust your judgment on this."

"Yeah, mate. Weird as it is, you seem to know what you're doing on this count. …Though, if Pitch gives you any trouble, just let me know and I'll send him packing, alright?" Bunnymund added.

Sandy beamed and created an image of the five of them in a group hug, as if to say _'We are family, and we stand together'._

Jack let out a deep sigh of relief. He hadn't been aware of just how much this had weighed on him until it had been lifted. He smiled warmly. "Thanks."

"Is no problem, Jack. Now, we are playing cards, you will join in, yes?" North said, pulling out a chair.

"Of course I will." Jack slid into the seat, feeling a deep sense of contentment in knowing that he belonged.


	26. Loss

Jack dropped into the lair for a visit one day and noticed that the place felt different. Gloomier, if that was possible. The shadows seemed to be longer and darker than ever, and there was no sign of any Hellhounds or Nightmares. Just a dreary, oppressive silence. Was something wrong?

"Pitch?" Jack called. No response. The Guardian frowned and ventured deeper into the caverns. After several minutes of wandering, he finally noticed a dark, hunched figure near one of the many cages of the place. Jack felt something like concern needle him, and hurried over.

The Nightmare King was sitting cross-legged on the floor, looking blankly down at something that he had cradled in his hands. Jack saw something with eight legs, covered in bristly black hair, and instinctively look a step backwards. Then he noticed that the spider was lying motionless on its back, legs curled upwards. "Oh. Pitch, I'm sorry," Jack said, creeping forwards to put a hand on the man's shoulder.

At the touch Pitch seemed to jerk out of whatever reverie he had been in and he snapped his head around to stare at Jack. "For what? You didn't kill her."

The emotionless way that Pitch spoke and the disinterested way he met Jack's gaze seemed to be far more worrying than any amount of anger or sadness that the boogeyman might have expressed. "It's… it's just hard, losing someone important."

"It's in the nature of living things to die. This one was no surprise, nor is it of any particular consequence," Pitch said, turning his face away from Jack and getting to his feet, letting the small, curled body of Sara fall to the floor.

The boogeyman started to wander away, lightly running his fingers over the bars of the cages he passed. Jack followed after him, and Pitch began to speak once more. "It makes no difference. I've watched entire nations vanish, Jack. Saints and sinners, kings and beggars, and so many of them so, so _afraid._ I was there before they were born, walked with them while they lived and feared, and I remain long after they are gone. If there's one thing that I've learned in my existence, it's that no one stays." Pitch's eyes caught one of the few beams of light within his domain and for an instant seemed to flash gold, gleaming like a dusty, long-forgotten locket. "Everyone leaves. And I remain; alone."

"Pitch, just because they're gone, doesn't mean they _left_. All the people who you've held dear, they're still with you. They're still in your heart."

Pitch laughed bitterly at that. "The Guardians just love to spout clichés, don't they? Even if that was true, you seem to be forgetting that I don't _have_ a heart. Nor do I have people that I care for."

"You know, I really would have thought that an evil mastermind would be a better liar."

"What do you want from me, Frost? Tears? I'm not so weak as to allow the passing of a single, insignificant bug to affect me."

"There's nothing weak about grieving for a lost friend."

"I'll have to disagree with you on that count." Pitch replied tiredly. Then, so quietly that Jack wasn't sure he heard it: "It makes me feels so unbearably weak."

The boogeyman sighed and sat down at the edge of a precipice, staring out into the dark and twisted majesty of his home. After a moment, Jack settled down beside him. Pitch's eyes flicked over to the Guardian, then back to staring out into the darkness. He didn't say anything, and neither did Jack. For a long while they just sat, side by side in silence.


	27. Anniversary

Cindy awoke late one night to see a dark figure standing at the foot of her bed. Biting back a scream, she drew her blankets protectively up to her throat with a shiver. "Who- Who are you?"

"Come now, you already know that," came the calm reply as yellow eyes and crooked teeth gleamed in the dark.

"B-boogeyman…" Cindy whimpered. She wanted to scream and run for her parents, but that gaze had her pinned like a deer in the headlights.

"Clever child." The man strode to the side of her bed as Cindy shrank back. "Calm down, my dear. I only want to ask you a question." He leaned in close, voice dropping to a soft hiss. "Do you believe in _Jack Frost_?"

* * *

Jack was always a bit sad to see spring arrive. It was part of the natural cycle of things, but it still hurt to see his winter wonderland slowly melt away and to watch all the kids prepare for warmer weather once more. He had friends on both hemispheres, though, so he was never alone for long.

Regardless, April had arrived and the time was coming for him to bid Burgess and the northern half of the planet a fond farewell for a few months.

This evening, he was wandering through the woods near Burgess, trudging through piles of slush and thinking. He was fairly preoccupied, so it was a bit of a surprise to hear someone start talking.

"My, my, whatever happened to that perpetual grin of yours? Don't tell me the ever-cheerful Jack Frost is feeling a bit melancholy tonight, of all nights?"

"What's so special about tonight, Pitch?" Jack asked, turning to watch the boogeyman emerge from the shadows and approach him.

"Oh, Jack, you haven't forgotten, have you? What happened on this day, all those years ago?" Pitch asked, circling Jack. "Granted, you previously have somehow managed to lose all recollection of your past, but really. This was fairly momentous."

"It's just early April, I don't see what's so special about it. I mean, Easter sometimes falls on it, but not this yea-" Jack stopped. Easter. When the Guardians and Pitch had their showdown, and when Pitch had been defeated.

"Ah, caught on, have you? Well, better late than never." Pitch flicked his hand and a coil of nightmare sand snaked over Jack's eyes, blindfolding him. "I've prepared a little _surprise_ for you, Jack."

"Pitch, what are you d-" Jack began, reaching up to try to pull the blindfold off. Abruptly his staff was snatched out of his other hand. "Hey!"

"What's the matter, Jack? Not having fun?" Pitch taunted. "And I put so much thought into this, too. I suppose I'll just leave, then." Jack could hear Pitch's voice begin to retreat, and a tapping noise as the boogeyman presumably used Jack's staff like a walking stick.

"Give it back, Pitch!" Jack yelled, swiping his hands over his eyes. The nightmare sand refused to budge.

"Come take it, Frost," Pitch called back.

"What are you playing at?" Jack demanded, reluctantly following after the sound of Pitch walking. Stumbling through utter blackness wasn't his idea of a good time, and following the boogeyman to locations unknown while unarmed and blinded seemed like an eminently bad idea.

"That's for me to know, and you to find out," Pitch replied, and Jack could _hear_ the smirk in his voice. Jack felt a little chill creep up his spine. Pitch wasn't still sore about what happened back then, was he? Well, of course he was, that was a silly thought. No one nursed a grudge like the boogeyman. What did he intend to do?

He heard Pitch snicker as Jack kept edging forwards, and gritted his teeth. This jerk was doing this on purpose, just to freak him out. Well, he wasn't about to give Pitch the satisfaction. He straightened and strode forward as confidently as he could, considering he couldn't see where he was going.

"That's the ticket, Frost. Not too much further now…" Jack could hear the murmurs of a number of excited voices up ahead. It was too muffled to make out the words. Before they became clearer, Pitch called out. "Simmer down, you lot! The guest of honor is here. You don't want to ruin the surprise."

What surprise? Jack wondered, still walking forward. He caught a couple of whispers saying his name, and flinched when he felt the occasional touch of what felt like small hands brushing over his hoodie. The sound of Pitch walking abruptly stopped. "Right there, Jack. Now, I think we can all safely say…" The nightmare sand suddenly dropped from Jack's eyes and he took in the sight of dozens of kids gathered around, grinning up at him.

"Happy Anniversary!" the group of them cheered, and Jack abruptly found himself buried under loads of joyful children.

"We'll miss you Jack!"

"You'll come back soon, right?"

Jack laughed in surprise and cheer. "Of course I will, squirts. You'll see, next year I'll give you so many snow days you'll have to stay in late in the summer!"

"Nooo!" the kids squealed, and the whole group dragged Jack to the ground where they tussled and wrestled happily. This went on for a while until they all collapsed, breathless.

"Ahem." Jack looked off to the side of the clearing where Pitch stood, leaning against a tree and idly twirling Jack's staff. "If you've had quite enough of that, don't you think you should go get the second part of Frost's surprise?"

The kids giggled and hurried off somewhere, calling, "Yes, mister boogeyman!"

"What was that all about, Pitch?" Jack asked, propping himself up on his elbows. "Not that I'm complaining."

"Today was the first day you gained a believer, was it not? It seems like it should be an occasion to celebrate."

"Well, yeah, I guess. But I didn't think you'd be alright with it, considering…" Jack trailed off.

Pitch laughed. "What, considering what else happened on that day? Come now, Jack, you don't think I'm so petty as to hold a grudge over such a minor setback, do you?"

 _You completely are._ But instead, Jack said, "Minor?"

Pitch grinned. "Of course. I _will_ win one day, and the world will bow to me. It's inevitable." He shrugged and handed Jack his staff back. "But for now, I'm gracious enough to allow fun to have its day of glory."

"How generous of you. My gratitude truly know no bounds, O Mighty Nightmare King," Jack deadpanned.

"And so it should. Especially considering how much effort it took to bring someone here who can't even _see_ me." Pitch replied, eyes flicking to somewhere behind Jack.

"Hi, Jack. Hard to believe it's been ten years, hey?"

"Jamie!" Jack scrambled to his feet and threw himself at the teen, pulling him into a hug reminiscent of that long-off day, though this time it was Jamie who was quite a bit taller. It wasn't as if Jack never met up with his first believer, but as Jamie had gotten older he had gotten busier and had less and less time to frolic in the snow. Having him here to celebrate was something special. "How are you, kiddo?"

"I'm good, Jack. Though I'm a bit confused about who organized all this. The kids tried to explain, but they weren't making much sense."

Jack shook his head. "Just an old friend. Now, I think what this place needs is a snowball fight, don't you?"


	28. Belief

"Pitch, what _are_ you up to?" Jack asked, perching on the windowsill of a darkened bedroom. It was rare for Jack Frost to be in the U.S. this late in May, but the nights were still cool and Pitch was acting strangely, so he had come to find out why.

"I'm doing my job, Jack. What does it look like?" the boogeyman replied from within the room, sprinkling nightmare sand onto the sleeping inhabitant. He grinned as the boy whimpered and clutched the sheets a bit closer. "Why should you care, anyway? He's not your concern. This boy isn't a child any longer; he no longer believes in you or the Guardians. As of yesterday, I believe."

Jack winced a bit at that last statement. He'd had believers grow up and forget him before, but it was still a new and painful experience for him. "That's what I'm talking about, actually. It seems like every time I lose a believer, the kid gets nightmares for a good week afterwards. It's almost like you take a particular interest in them, and I don't get it. I mean, if they were happening beforehand I'd think you were behind them forgetting, but..." Jack trailed off as a thought occurred to him. "Are you... are you getting revenge on them for me?"

Pitch blinked at Jack. "No." he said impassively. "I'm simply taking advantage. It's very convenient that there are people who are foolish enough to abandon you and thus forsake your protection."

Jack groaned and held his face in his hands. This was Pitch being protective again, wasn't it? Why did he suddenly feel like he was holding the chain of a very territorial and aggressive pit bull? "Look, I, uh, appreciate the thought and all. But seriously, don't do this. It's not their fault."

Pitch's eyes flashed. "I'm sorry, you must have mistaken me for someone who you can order around. I shall do whatever I please, Frost. As I said, the child is no longer your concern. He _forgot_ you."

"I'm making him my concern!" Jack snapped. "You can't honestly believe I'd be alright with this!"

"…I shouldn't be surprised." Pitch said, eyes narrowing. "Very well, Jack. You've made your decision." With a snarl, he hurled nightmare sand at the Guardian, catching him off guard and sending him tumbling off the window sill. Jack recovered mid-air and zipped back to the window, ready for a fight. The bedroom was empty but for the sleeper.

* * *

Pitch stalked through his lair, muttering darkly. He'd always known Jack would hold his Guardian duties above all else. He'd taken the blasted oath, fallen in with the rest of the Man in the Moon's band of merry idiots. Pitch had made his peace with that.

But this was different. This boy hadn't been under the Guardian's protection, this boy had _abandoned_ Jack, yet still he was chosen over Pitch.

He really shouldn't have been surprised. Jack had always had a meddlesome streak. Always sticking his nose into things that he had no obligation to help with. He'd sided with the Guardians despite centuries of neglect. He'd decided to protect children before they even knew he existed.

He'd come to the aid of a fallen enemy, when by all rights he should have left Pitch to rot.

No, he wasn't going to think about that now, he was angry with Jack. Who did that boy think he was, ordering the King of Nightmares around like that? He was at no one's beck and call.

He should have stayed there and taught that upstart pup a lesson about tangling with the boogeyman. After he'd snapped the boy's staff again, and maybe a few arms or legs or ribs, even someone as stupendously dense as Jack should be able to get the message. Yes, that's what he should have done. He regretted leaving so hastily now.

The frost spirit was mistaken, anyway. He was simply doing his job, spinning nightmares. It was simply easier to target ones that didn't have Guardians hovering around them, or at least, _shouldn't_. It had nothing to do with the fact that he could _feel_ a spike of Jack's fear, just a little one, every time one of them stopped believing. It didn't matter that the little touch of panic was laced with muffled, but still present, insecurities about being forgotten, abandoned, and left all alone. It wasn't that Pitch knew those feelings himself all too well.

He was just passing by his rusted globe when he noticed one little light flicker and die. Well, it was getting to be summer now, it was no surprise that the winter spirit was losing followers. Pitch smirked. Even if he wasn't targeting nonbelievers before, -and he _wasn't-_ he might as well start doing so now. Just to be contrary. Jack Frost couldn't tell him what to do.

* * *

As was to be expected, the Guardian showed up shortly after he had crept out from under the girl's bed. For a moment the two of them eyed each other in an uneasy standoff. Then, without breaking eye contact, Pitch held one hand over the sleeper and started to slowly open his fist, nightmare sand trickling through his loosening fingers. He smiled, a razor thin smirk, _daring_ Jack to just try to stop him. He was itching for a fight.

Pitch could see Jack's knuckles whiten as he tightened his grip around his staff. Then, surprisingly, the Guardian sighed and relaxed, letting his hands fall to his side with his staff dangling lazily from his fingers. "Pitch, don't do this."

"Oh? And why shouldn't I?"

"Tell you what, I'll cut you a deal. You stop fixating on these kids, and I'll help you with some dark deeds."

The boogeyman's grin faltered, and he drew back his hand. "You don't mean...?"

"Yep." Jack gave a crooked smile. "There's a horror show finishing in ten minutes, if we hurry we can catch the lot of them and see if we can't make them jump out of their skin."

"Hmm, yes. That _is_ tempting..." Pitch stroked his chin in thought for a moment, then chuckled. "Well, who am I to turn down an opportunity to drag a Guardian into darkness for a bit? Let's go."


	29. Post Show

The sandman tended to not pay very much attention to adults; none of the Guardians did. They existed to protect and safeguard children. Once the fledglings had safely grown up, they'd succeeded, their work was done. Well, Tooth did still send out happy memories when they were needed, but adults needed to learn to stand on their own, forge their own hopes and dreams and wonder.

So it took Sandy a little while longer than it perhaps should have to notice that Pitch seemed to be causing trouble for a group of adults in the town he was floating above. …Along with Jack?

Apparently so, judging from the amount of whooping and laughter going on outside of an old movie theatre. The two of them were flitting from person to person as the jumpy-looking adults filtered out the doors and started to head home, down sidewalks or pathways or to their parked cars.

Pitch slinked behind them, whispering barely audible anxieties into their ears as dark and sinister shadows seemed to lurk just out of the corner of their eyes and in every dimly lit corner. Streetlights flickered and went out as people walked beneath them, and ominous rustling and creaking sounds echoed from places just large enough to potentially hide some kind of skulking threat.

Jack, laughing, zipped from person to person, running his staff down peoples' backs, sending shivers down their spines and raising goosebumps as they yelped or hugged themselves against this sudden and preternatural chill. The wind made eerie howling and moaning noises as it carried Jack through the murky night and to his next victims. Chilling designs in frost appeared on car windows, monsters and shadows and faces.

One young couple was making their way down a pathway and happened to have the misfortune to gain the attention of both of the immortals. Sandy watched, unnoticed, as Jack and Pitch smirked at each other and crept up on the couple.

The woman was clinging to the man's arm, looking pale and nervous. The man smiled and squeezed her shoulder comfortingly. "Don't be scared, sweetie. It was only a movie. Besides, I'm here to protect you…"

That was as far as he got before they were swooped down upon. All the streetlights in a twenty-foot radius suddenly went dark as Jack created a patch of ice right where the woman stepped next. She let out an involuntary yelp as her foot went out from under her and she flailed to keep her balance. The man screamed (in a rather high-pitched tone, too) and bolted, leaving his partner behind.

The lights came back on, shining down on a severely unimpressed-looking woman with folded arms. "Here to protect me, huh?!" she hollered at the fleeing figure.

Pitch and Jack both collapsed against a wall, shaking with laughter. Both of them were positively beaming with mischievous glee. It was actually kind of disturbing to see how much of Pitch was reflected in Jack, and how much of Jack's influence he could see on Pitch. At the moment, the two of them were achingly similar.

Sandy was no stranger to feeling a certain kinship with the boogeyman. The two of them were the oldest of the immortals, both of them with overlapping powers and domains. Sandy didn't like the way that his counterpart behaved most of the time, and he had no doubt that the feeling was mutual, but he did understand the reasons why Pitch acted the way he did, even if he disagreed.

The winter Guardian, though, went about it entirely differently. Jack seemed capable of not only sympathizing with the boogeyman, but of bringing out a side of Pitch no one seemed to know existed. Not good, exactly, but not evil either. Fun was a very powerful force, it seemed.

Pitch was the first one to notice their audience. When he laid eyes on the golden man, his easy smile immediately vanished, replaced with wariness. He shifted, moving so that Jack was in between the sandman and him. "Sanderson. Don't you have better things to do than spy on people?" he asked coldly.

Jack perked up. "Hey there, Sandy!" he greeted the man with a cheery grin. "Sorry, didn't notice you there. I'd invite you to join us-" It was probably a good thing that Jack couldn't see Pitch's expression at that idea. "-but I think all the moviegoers have cleared out by now."

Sandy smiled and flapped a hand dismissively. No need to worry. He didn't think he would be very good at the sort of things these two were getting up to anyway.

"Did you see the way that some of them jumped? It was great!" Jack laughed. "I really do need to get a camera someday."

Sandy nodded, then gestured at them both, ignoring the way Pitch flinched, just a little, and created some numbers counting up in dreamsand, and a question mark.

"What? Oh, naw, we haven't done this often. Don't worry, I'm not going to trade snowballs for scaring people. Pitch wouldn't appreciate the competition, would you?" Jack asked, turning to look at Pitch.

"This is hardly all I get up to, Frost. You wouldn't even be able to come close to being half as menacing as I am." Pitch replied, not taking his eyes off of Sandy.

"Oh, is that a challenge, now?"

"It's a fact. Now, I have other things to attend to tonight. I'll leave you to… chat with your friend."

"Hey, remember, don't-" Jack began, but was hurriedly cut off.

"Yes, we came to an agreement on that count, I remember. Don't you trust me, Jack?" Pitch asked, giving one cheshire-like smile before vanishing into the shadows.

Jack sighed and shook his head, then turned his attention back to Sandy. "That guy, huh? Anyway, how are you, Sandy? What sort of dreams have you cooked up tonight?"


	30. Illness

Jack zipped into the lair one day, humming. Winter was underway, everything was going well, and he was in a good mood. Not too many kids were up and about right now, so he might as well give Pitch a visit and expend some energy on some play fighting or something.

There was a hellhound sitting near the entrance, its chin propped up on a stalagmite. It jerked to attention when it saw Jack, but the Guardian had noticed the hound's expression beforehand. It was, somewhat disturbingly, reminiscent of other dogs he had seen, ones that were waiting anxiously for their owners to come back home. "Hey, boy. So Pitch isn't here, huh?" Jack asked, landing near the beast. "Your master must be out making trouble."

The Hellhound merely eyed him impassively with its ember-bright eyes. The beasties in Pitch's lair tended to give Jack a wide berth or treat him as part of the furniture. Probably a combination of Jack tending to freeze them solid every Halloween and Pitch's 'never touch _my_ property' attitude with Jack. Not that Jack was about to let their chilly reception of him bring him down.

"Well, if he isn't here, this is the perfect opportunity to go exploring, don't you think?" he continued in a conversational tone. "I've always been kinda curious what sorts of things he keeps in here. Oh, don't give me that look." The Hellhound snorted. "I'm going to do it whether you let me or not, the only difference will be whether or not you're a houndsicle. So you might as well come with me, in case I get lost or something."

That said, Jack started to wander amongst the dark and twisted passageways of the place, stopping every so often to draw some frosty graffiti on walls he thought looked particularly dull. The hellhound slinked after him, occasionally voicing growls of disapproval which Jack of course ignored.

The exploration started to get a little dull, though, at least until Jack stumbled into one room in particular and burst out laughing. "Oh, wow. That completely ruins the mood of the place. Though I suppose he has to keep this stuff somewhere, doesn't he?"

* * *

Pitch returned to his lair only to have one of his Hellhounds come bounding up to greet him, whining. "What's the matter?" he asked, reaching out to scratch the hound under its chin. "Is there an intruder?"

The beast leaned appreciatively into the touch before pulling away and starting down a corridor. It looked back at Pitch and whined again.

"Very well, I'm coming." Pitch followed the creature through the labyrinthine passages until he heard a pained groan from within one of the many rooms. "Jack?" Pitch picked up his pace a bit and nightmare sand formed a scythe in his hand. If there was something in his realm that had _dared_ to harm the boy…

He stopped at the sight before him. Jack was lying on a veritable mountain of candy wrappers, arms wrapped around his middle. "Owwww…" he moaned.

Pitch stared, not sure how to deal with this turn of events. On one hand, he was relieved that… No. No, he knew exactly how he felt about this. Angry. Jack had crept into his home, uninvited, wandered around without permission, and gorged himself to the point of sickness on _his_ Halloween candy. He was angry with how idiotic this little brat was.

He strode up to the prone Guardian and glared down at him, stroking the blade of his scythe. "Give me one good reason why I shouldn't cut you open and take back my candy."

Jack flinched at the sound of Pitch's voice; he'd apparently been too focused on his gastrointestinal distress to notice the boogeyman before now. "Um… I'm already suffering enough? Also, it'd be really unsanitary." He winced and curled up tighter as another wave of cramps swamped him. "Owwww. Pitch, help."

Pitch crossed his arms, scythe dissolving back into sand. "I'm not sure what you expect me to do. You brought this upon yourself. Besides, I seem to recall promising to just sit back and watch you suffer next time you were in trouble."

"If… ergh… if you just leave me here I'm going to puke on everything you own."

The boogeyman blinked. "Hmm. Well, I can't be having that." He clicked his tongue and a Nightmare came to his side. Pitch grabbed Jack by the back of his hoodie and draped him over the horse's back like a sack of flour, ignoring the Guardian's groans. Then blackness closed over them. Light returned, along with the smell of gingerbread and peppermint, and the sounds of a bustling environment.

North noticed the appearance of the boogeyman and the Nightmare in his workshop immediately. He came over with one hand on his sabre hilt, watching warily. "Pitch. What do you want?

"Why, hello there North. I'd say that it was nice to see you again, but I'm trying to cut back on the lying this year. You can relax, I'm not here to make trouble this time. I'm just here to give this thing back to you." He picked Jack off of the Nightmare and pushed him at North. "He's your problem now."

North grabbed the swaying boy before he toppled over, looking concerned. "Pitch, did you poison him?" he demanded.

Pitch rolled his eyes. "I know it's not your forte, but do _try_ to think for a bit. Why would I bring him to _you_ if he was poisoned? Believe me, North, if I was responsible for his condition, I'd only bring him back if he had a terrible disease, something nasty and viral and…" He grinned widely when Jack shuddered and heaved a wave of multi-colored vomit all over North's boots. "…contagious. Have fun!" Pitch cackled and vanished.


	31. Valentine's

Pitch still wasn't sure what his overall opinion on Valentine's Day was. On one hand, the staggering amount of insipid declarations of love and affection were utterly sickening, Cupid was a completely insufferable prat, and holidays in general just irked him beyond belief. On the other hand, there was no better day to bask in the anxieties and fears of those without partners on this auspicious day. Oh, the fear of rejection, of dying alone… Not quite as exhilarating as good old mortal fear, granted, but it still had its charms, and it _was_ gloriously persistent.

Unfortunately, the boogeyman had little to do with those fears directly, and the sheer amount of pink and red was an affront to his senses, so Pitch tended to spend the day in his lair, brooding. No, he decided, he wasn't fond of Valentine's Day, small silver lining aside. Definitely something that he would abolish, when he had the chance.

"Hey, Pitch?" Jack's voice rang out through the lair. The boy had time to bother him in the middle of February? Usually he was pretty busy. Pitch went to go see what this was about.

Jack was hovering near the entrance, looking flustered. There was a dusting of frost covering his cheeks, odd. "Pitch, I, uh, I'm sorry, but I can't say I feel the same way," he stammered, holding his staff across his chest defensively.

Pitch stared at him. "…The same way about what?"

"Uh… This?" He held up a bouquet of jet-black roses, tied with a velvet ribbon. There was a card nestled among them.

"Give me that." Pitch snatched the flowers out of Jack's hand and pulled out the card, high-grade black stationary with gold-embossed lettering. He scanned it. "…My light in the darkness? Is that supposed to be a term of endearment? I _hate_ light."

"So… they aren't from you?" Relief was evident in Jack's voice.

Pitch snorted. "I like to think that I have better tastes than that, Jack. You've been had. Where did you get these from, anyway?"

"They were on my lake."

"And you jumped to conclusions. My, something about this holiday just makes twits of everyone, doesn't it?" Pitch shrugged and flicked the card back at Jack. "Well, I suppose it _is_ signed… Not my writing, though. Actually, it looks quite similar to a certain Guardian… He's quite an accomplished gardener, I believe. Leaves flowers everywhere, doesn't he?"

Jack's eyes narrowed, and he crumpled the card in his hand. "Bunnymund. Payback for the pranks from before, I guess. Oh, he is going to get it!" He looked at Pitch. "We will never speak of this again, agreed?"

Pitch smirked. "Of course. I wouldn't _dream_ of using this against you, Jack."

Jack groaned and dragged his hand down his face. "…I'll deal with that when it happens. Right now I have a rabbit to kill."

"Have fun."


	32. Proposal

Jack had just left when Pitch got a wonderful, awful idea. Jack wouldn't really kill the Easter Bunny, sadly. And Bunnymund was of course expecting anger and embarrassment, and why should that overgrown hare get anything _he_ wanted? No, it would be so much better to turn the tables on him…

Besides, it was Valentine's Day. He should really act in the spirit of the holiday. Pitch smiled and slipped off into the shadows.

* * *

Jack landed near one of the entry tunnels to the Warren, frost sparking in the air around him. "Bunnymund!" He yelled. "Get your cotton tail up here right now!"

The Easter Bunny hopped out of the hole, smirking. "What'sa matter, mate? Was Valentine's a bit too eventful for you this year?"

"Look here, you furry little-" Jack started into his rant.

"We really can't thank you enough," Pitch cut in, materializing directly behind Jack. The two Guardians jumped at the sudden appearance of the boogeyman. "I mean, who would have thought the two of us were just too shy to make the first move?" he purred, lightly tracing a finger down Jack's arm. Jack pulled away from the touch, giving Pitch a questioning look, but the boogeyman was too occupied watching the Easter Bunny's reaction.

The look of abject horror on Bunnymund's face was just too delicious; Pitch almost lost the battle to hold in his laughter at the sight of it. It was difficult, but he managed to keep his beatific smile steady.

"Pitch, what're you-" Jack began.

"Oh, you aren't being bashful now, are you, my snowflake?" Pitch asked, cocking his head to one side and grinning widely at the winter spirit. "I mean, after that last meeting in my lair, I don't think either of us can deny the connection any more."

Pitch could see realization dawn on Jack as a grin to match his own spread over the boy's face. "I suppose you're right, my… dark angel," he said. Pitch had to bite back another wave of laughter. Jack's pet names could use some work.

Bunnymund finally snapped out of the shock that had frozen him. "What? You… you're not serious, are ya?"

"Oh, but we're very serious. And we have you to thank for bringing us together in such a romantic way," Pitch looked sidelong at the rabbit as he produced the black bouquet and toyed with the ribbon. "It was terribly sweet of you. Surely it means you approve of the two of us, right?"

Bunnymund growled. "Not blooming likely, ya whacker. It was a joke! Don't you dare touch Jack!"

"Jeez, Bunny, when did you become my dad?" Jack asked, leaning on his staff.

"Jack, mate, this can't be right. Cupid musta got you with a stray arrow or something, you gotta stop!" Bunnymund pleaded.

Pitch sneered at the Easter Bunny. "Oh, is this making you uncomfortable? I intend to do more than touch, rabbit." He got down on one knee, facing Jack with his back to Bunnymund. "Jack, will you…" Taking a page out of the sandman's book, he used his nightmare sand to form the rest of the message: _pummel Bunnymund with snowballs?_

Jack laughed. "I'd like nothing better."

"Jack, no!" Bunnymund cried. His terror-struck expression was wiped off his face by a snowball smacking him right between the eyes. A flurry of them followed immediately afterwards, sending him reeling backwards, right back into the tunnel. He fell down it with a yelp.

"Next time, you might want to pick a prank that doesn't have the potential to backfire so spectacularly," Pitch called down the tunnel with a cackle. "Oh, but don't worry, I have no interest in whisking Jack away! Consider this payback for putting _my_ name on that ridiculous bouquet!"

"You son of a... Rack off!" Bunnymund yelled back.

Jack clutched his sides, shaking. "That was great. Though…" He wiped tears of laughter out of his eyes. "Explaining this to the other Guardians is bound to be a little awkward."

"Psh, I doubt the rabbit will be eager to share this little misadventure with the others anytime soon. You should be fine."


	33. Mistake

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Whoops, I used up all my silly on the last chapter. This one turned out pretty dark. Sorry about that.

A wave of fear alerted him to the presence of someone outside of the entrance to his lair. Someone frantic with worry. Jack.

Pitch waited a moment, expecting the Guardian to come barreling into his home as was usual. He didn't. Just what was Jack up to now? Pitch decided that he didn't have the patience to just wait for Jack to decide to come in. He'd go find out for himself what brought the winter spirit this time. He melted into a shadow and flowed over stairways and up walls until he finally emerged out from under the bedframe.

Jack was pacing back and forth nearby. He had his hood drawn up over his head, was clutching his staff to his chest, and not a hint of a smile could be seen on his face. Pitch reformed himself into his tangible body, leaning against the bedframe. "Is something the matter, Jack?" he asked.

The Guardian flinched, turning to look at the boogeyman with frantic eyes. "Pitch, I just… I don't know what to do."

"You're going to have to elaborate, I'm afraid. I haven't the faintest idea what you're talking about."

Jack hunched closer around his staff, dropping his gaze to the ground. "There was an accident," he whispered. "A kid… I was playing with a group of them, we were going sledding. One of them wandered off, went down a different slope. I was distracted, I wasn't watching closely enough..." Jack closed his eyes. "She… she hit a tree. It's bad, real bad. They don't know if she's going to wake up."

Pitch frowned. "I… see. That _is_ very unfortunate. But surely one of the Guardians would be better suited to help you with this?"

"No! No, I can't tell them," Jack said, snapping his eyes back up to meet Pitch's. "I hurt a kid, Pitch. She'd never have been in that situation if not for me. The Guardians, they'll…"

Jack didn't finish the thought, but he didn't need to. Pitch could read the fear in Jack's heart like an open book. _They'll know I'm not fit to be a Guardian. That I'm nothing more than a burden, a danger. I only make a mess wherever I go and they're going to throw me out. I_ deserve _to be thrown out._

Pitch sighed. "You're being an idiot."

Jack flinched like Pitch had struck him. "I shouldn't have come. Sorry." The wind lifted him off the ground and he started to fly off, only to have a coil of nightmare sand wrap around his ankle and drag him firmly back to the ground.

"Just sit still and listen for once in your miserable existence," Pitch said sharply. "Did you personally push this girl down the hill in the knowledge she would be harmed?"

"No! I'd never do anything like that! Now let me go!" Jack snapped, hurling a bolt of ice at Pitch.

The boogeyman sidestepped out of the way, expression calm and focused. "Then you're not responsible for her being hurt."

"I'm supposed to protect the kids! I failed!" Jack yelled, snow and ice forming and whirling around him like a private blizzard.

Pitch was unfazed. "I assure you, Jack, there are _hundreds_ of children and adults alike who have suffered the same fate as your little one. I'd be willing to bet in the next town over there's dozens of children in the hospital due to accidents. Are you responsible for all those injuries as well? What's the difference between not helping them, whether they're one hundred feet or one hundred miles away? Aren't they all deserving of your protection? Shouldn't you have been watching over them, too?" Pitch punctuated each question by taking a step closer to Jack, until he was looming over the Guardian. "While we speak, somewhere in the world a tragedy is befalling a child. Why aren't you out there stopping it personally?"

Jack was hugging his staff to his chest again, trembling, his anger gone. The ice fell to the ground. "I… I can't stop it all. I can't protect everyone."

"That's right. You can't. You can't just wave that staff of yours and magically make everything that's bad in the world go away. No one can. ...But that doesn't mean you don't make a difference." Pitch smiled wryly. "Believe me, I know all about how effective you are at being a Guardian. I'd be ruling this world if not for you, remember?"

"But I-"

Pitch cut him off. "No. One of the hardest lessons to learn is to accept your limitations, Jack. Mistakes get made, and the only thing you can do about that is _learn_ from them. Mortals get hurt all the time. Some recover, some die. It's the way the world is, and you can't change that. What you _can_ do is make life brighter for those you interact with. Give them fun times to offset the bad ones. And sometimes, Jack, that makes all the difference in the world."

Jack took a shuddering breath and stood a little straighter. "I suppose you're right. Thanks, Pitch."

"Thanks? For what?" Pitch asked. He waved a hand and the nightmare sand tethering Jack to the ground vanished. "I'm simply stating something you should have picked up already in your three-hundred years of life, if you weren't an idiot. Now, a proper Guardian should be back there, helping out the kids who are worried about their friend. Get going, I'm sick of your face."

"Charming as always, Pitch." Jack retorted with a small, weak smile, the first one he had cracked since he arrived. "But I do mean it. Thanks." The wind lifted him up again and this time he was unhindered as he zipped back over the treetops.


	34. Present

"Pitch, hey, I got you something." Jack said, grinning and holding up a giftwrapped package.

The boogeyman eyed both Jack and the gift suspiciously. "Why?"

"Do I need a reason? I thought you might like it, is all." Jack replied cheerily.

That grin of Jack's was far too wide for there not to be some kind of catch to this. Pitch glowered at the frost spirit. "I swear, Jack, if this is going to be a repeat of the peanut brittle incident, I will turn you inside out."

Jack chuckled. "I still can't believe you feel for that one, Pitch. One of the oldest pranks in the book, short of a whoopee cushion." He paused at that last sentence and a pensive look crossed his face.

"Don't even _think_ about it, Frost," Pitch growled darkly.

"Aw, you're such a terrible sport," Jack said with a sigh. He straightened up and placed one hand over his heart. "But I solemnly swear that this present will not explode, make strange noises, spray you with water, or anything of that sort. C'mon."

"You're not going to leave me alone until I do what you want, are you?"

"Of course not. Jack Frost is no quitter." Jack replied with a proud grin.

Pitch muttered an invective under his breath and snatched the gift out of Jack's hand. In one fluid movement he tore off the wrapping and looked over the contents. "…It's a book." He flipped it over and scanned the summary on the back. "A romance novel. Is this the great prank, Jack? Getting me a story that I clearly have no interest in? I'm afraid you're getting rusty."

"What, you haven't heard of it before? It's pretty famous."

"I can hardly be expected to keep up with whatever insipid dreck humans find entertaining at the moment."

"C'mon, it's got vampires in it! In a romance story!"

"And? Mortals have been romanticizing vampires for _decades_ , Jack. Sure, it's infuriating that they've turned something once terrifying into another outlet for titillation, but that's hardly a new development. If you wanted to see me angry about that, you should have talked to me a half century ago."

"Did I mention that they _sparkle_?"

Pitch rolled his eyes. "Jack, there are myths about vampires that are identifiable because of their backwards feet. Others have necks that can stretch out meters long, or consist of nothing more than a floating head and a bunch of trailing internal organs. There's even one bloodsucker that is a human head with bird's talons that flies around using its massive ears like wings. And that's not to mention the vampire squash and pumpkins of the Balkans. Do you really think that _sparkling_ is the most ridiculous trait that can be applied to vampires?"

"Are you serious?" Jack asked incredulously.

"Sadly, yes. Human imagination is, on the whole, very fertile. It produces both wonderful terrors and annoying absurdities. I prefer to focus on and delight in the former. It's too much trouble to be irritated by the latter." He shrugged and tossed the book over his shoulder, where it plummeted off a precipice and was swallowed up by darkness. Jack didn't hear it hit the bottom.

"Huh, I never took you for an optimist. Well, optimistic for you, at least."

"Please, do you really think a pessimist would have the ambition to try to overthrow the Guardians and drown the world in darkness?" Pitch asked with a grin. "I'm always certain that my plans will pan out eventually, Jack. The belief in a bleaker future is what kept me from giving up after all those… setbacks." Pitch's expression became more distant, guarded.

The boogeyman's words reminded Jack of his own time being abandoned, invisible, forgotten. How he'd had to fight off despair and the aching fear that no one would ever acknowledge him. How many centuries had Pitch struggled with that same pain? Jack shrugged off those dark thoughts. Those days were in the past for him… and for Pitch, too. The Guardian smiled cheekily at the boogeyman. "That's almost inspirational. Never give up, never surrender. You know, aside from the whole 'evil being of darkness taking over the world' thing. I don't know if that'd make for a very good underdog film."

Pitch smirked. "What, only the good guys are supposed to follow their dreams, now? What is it that they're telling children these days? 'You can accomplish anything you put your mind to'? Maybe there should be a disclaimer on that. 'But only accomplish it if it's something that is deemed to be acceptable by the general public.'"

"That's not very catchy."

"Well, then you're on your own for coming up with villain-discouraging motivational posters." Pitch replied with a shrug.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The silly has returned, huzzah! Oh and yes, all the vampires mentioned above are genuine myths. The vampiric pumpkins don't have any special name, but the others, in order of their mention, are: the Pichal Peri, the Rokurokubi, the Penanggalan, and the Chonchon.


	35. Cage

A flash of colour caught Jack's eye when he came to visit the boogeyman's lair one day. Reds and blues and yellows, all so out of place in this dim, monochromatic realm. There, in one of the largest cages, a pile of what looked like frayed and dust-covered rags. What was that doing there? Had Pitch picked up another pet? What sort of thing had piqued his interest this time, and why, Jack wondered with a shudder, would it need such a large living space?

He went closer to the cage cautiously. When he spotted a small hand peeking out from under the quilts he felt the pit of his stomach drop and a chill creep down his spine. Kids. There were kids in the cage. At least a dozen of them, scratched and bruised and sprawled out senseless on the floor of the structure. Jack was at the bars in an instant.

"Don't worry, don't worry, it's okay. I'm going to get you out," he said reassuringly, scrambling for the lock. The kids didn't so much as twitch and a whole new horror froze Jack for a moment as he stared desperately at the limp children. "Hey, hey, wake up," he pleaded. Still no response, but one child sighed and drew the blankets tighter around herself. _Just asleep, just asleep, thank the Moon_. Jack thought with relief.

"They can't hear you, Jack."

"Pitch!" Jack whirled, leveling his staff at the boogeyman, standing protectively between the cage and where Pitch had emerged from. "Why are these kids in a cage?!"

"Because when they were free to wander about one of them almost fell off of a cliff," Pitch answered, seemingly unperturbed by Jack's aggression.

"I'm not joking around about this, Pitch. You send these kids back home right now," Jack growled dangerously.

"I can't."

"What do you mean, you can't?!"

"They don't have a home to go back to," Pitch replied acidly, narrowing his eyes.

"What have you done, Pitch?" Jack asked, voice low.

The boogeyman looked at him disdainfully. "You seem to have already made up your mind on that count, Jack. Shall I tell you what you want to hear, then? That I've gone back to my old ways? That I've dragged children into my domain, abused them, and done something to destroy their homes? If that's what you believe, I'd be more than happy to give you that fight you seem to be itching for, Frost," he hissed, and Jack could see the glowing eyes of Nightmares and Hellhounds blink into existence from the shadows behind Pitch.

Jack gritted his teeth and tightened his grip on the staff, instincts screaming at him to blast the boogeyman away, drive him back to the shadows, and take the kids back home. The look on Pitch's face made him hesitate. He'd gotten pretty good at reading Pitch over the years, and right now the Nightmare King was angry, yes, but more than that he was insulted. Why? Jack reined in his anger. "If that's not what happened, then tell me what did. Explain for once instead of dancing around the subject like always. And it had better be good," he growled, shifting into a slightly less aggressive stance.

Pitch rolled his eyes. "It's very far from good, Jack. There was an earthquake. A little country, near the equator, not exactly your jurisdiction. Most of the buildings collapsed. Those-" he gestured at the cage behind Jack "-were trapped under the rubble, and they were so, so frightened. It seemed like such a shame to just leave such powerful sources of fear to be smothered under brick and mortar. So I yanked them out."

Jack raised an eyebrow.

Pitch scowled in response. "Yes, I'm well aware that I don't normally do such a thing. I assure you, this reminded me why I don't. Children are terrible, wretched things, nothing but incessant babbling and crying and demands. If it were only terrified screaming, that would be different, but no. Not to mention that these ones kept trying to run off and escape and nearly broke their scrawny little necks. So I put them in the cage for safekeeping and put them to sleep to make them be quiet." He rubbed his temples. "I still have a splitting headache from the whole thing."

"…That's a completely unbelievable story," Jack said, crossing his arms.

"Then wouldn't I have come up with a better lie?" Pitch asked, examining his nails nonchalantly. "And I really couldn't care less whether you believe me or not. Though you might notice that I haven't set my Nightmares on the little ones sleeping so vulnerably in my realm."

Jack frowned and glanced over his shoulder at the kids again. No dreamsand danced over their heads, but no nightmare sand either. "Why not?"

Pitch folded his arms. "I don't want them to wake up and cause a ruckus again. And even I'm not so heartless as to take children that have gone through something very traumatic and consign them to inescapable nightmares." He glared at Jack as if daring him to make a comment on this. "Besides, they'll have more than enough of them later on in life."

"So what are you going to do with them, then?"

Pitch shrugged. "I have no intention of keeping these terrible, noisy brats here any longer than necessary. With luck, the relief efforts will reach the area soon enough. I'll dump the children on them then."

"How caring of you. I'll just stick around and watch over them for now, if it's all the same to you." Jack said, backflipping to perch on the top of the cage.

"Still don't trust me, Frost? You wound me," Pitch drawled. "I suppose I can expect nothing less from a Guardian, though. Even if these children have never heard of you. Do what you will." He faded back into the shadows with a curt nod.


	36. Tremor

He hadn't intended to interfere, he really hadn't. The screams and the panic and the terror had drawn him to the site of the earthquake like a moth to a flame, but he'd only meant for himself to be an observer, truly.

Well, maybe a little more than an observer. He just couldn't help himself. The fear was too sweet by far. It was far too tempting to find a little one, trapped in darkness and rubble and dust and terror, and play with him a bit.

This particular one was wedged underneath a desk, fallen roofbeams and brick blocking him in and cradling him in a cramped and lightless space barely large enough for him to be curled in a ball around himself. The fear in the air broadcasted the child's thoughts loud and clear.

 _No, no, no, please no._ The boy was shaking so hard. _This can't be real, it's gotta be some kind of nightmare. Dark, dark it's so dark. I can't see. My arm hurts. I don't want to die here. I want my mom and dad. I don't want to die._

Then there was a gleam of something like light in the space, and the boy abruptly wishes there wasn't. Eyes, bright yellow eyes, predator eyes, watching him. A scream tore its way out of the child's already raw and aching throat, and he tried to shrink away.

Oh, yes, the boy could see him. Pitch smiled, baring sharp teeth as the child buried his face in his arms with a whimper. Fearing the boogeyman even in the midst of everything else that was happening, how cute. Pitch loved children.

Then abruptly there was an aftershock, and a terrible creaking noise, and a rush of mortal terror from the small child. What left of the building that had remained standing had been unbalanced by the tremor, and it was coming down.

A load of brick and wood fell onto the boy's shelter with a gunshot-sharp _BANG_ and the table above the child's head gave way with a crack. The rubble above would pour in and crush the small, fragile mortal beneath and that would be the end of it.

No, Pitch couldn't, wouldn't allow the little light to be snuffed out. He wasn't finished tormenting the child! Shadow and nightmare sand formed a net over the boy's head as quickly as thought, bringing the debris to an abrupt halt inches above the boy's skull.

There, that would hold, Pitch thought with satisfaction.

…But the fear was dwindling still. Why? Was the child so relieved to still be alive? Surely not. The rattling, choked gasp from the boy let him catch on. Oh, right, air. The child was asphyxiating now, having used up all the oxygen in the cramped space. How inconsiderate of the boy to start dying even after Pitch had acted to preserve his life. This simply wouldn't do.

Nightmare sand wrapped around the small form, dragging him into the shadows. Pitch had to act quickly, and his lair was the place he knew best. It would be easy enough to frighten the boy there. Once he was satisfied, he might even return the child to his proper keepers. Yes, he was in a good mood today. He could be benevolent.

Actually, there were a fair number of little believers all around, weren't there? It would be such a shame to lose them. He'd take them for safekeeping.

And if there were a few hours where rescue workers feared and worried and frantically searched for children that were nowhere to be found, well, then, all the better. Pitch chuckled and slipped off to the shadows, off to collect his charges.

* * *

It took him one hour to completely and utterly regret his decision.

It had been literal ages since he'd dragged any children down to his domain, and now he was remembering why. The little brats weren't only capable of sweet, lovely screams, oh no. There was sobbing and whining and complaining and questions and demands and not all of them at once would listen to him, not even when he put on his scarier faces. And it only took one of them to laugh or be infuriatingly defiant and then the lot of them were yanked out from under his sway. Just like before…

Not to mention that he'd somehow neglected to notice that one of them had brought her security blanket along and constantly used it to ward him off and stymie him. Oh, how he _hated_ those stupid rules he was bound by. The boogeyman, King of Nightmares, balked by simply diving under the covers.

The last straw was when they started scattering off into the other parts of his lair. Rounding them all up again and again was an exercise in aggravation and he didn't even want to _think_ of what would happen if they had managed to find where he kept the Halloween candy.

When the little boy fell off one of the higher causeways of his lair, he had been honestly tempted to just let him. Maybe the rest of them would actually _listen_ then.

But no, the mess would be terrible to clean up and Jack would probably disapprove.

"THAT. IS. IT!" Pitch shrieked. A coil of nightmare sand caught the child before he hit the ground below and shadowy hands grabbed the ankles of rest of them and dragged the whole lot of them in front of Pitch. "I have had it!" he snarled. "I should have left you all to DIE! Since that's no longer on the table, we'll have to do the next best thing." He flung them into a cage and dumped nightmare sand on top of them, knocking them out cold. He slammed the door shut and reined in the Nightmares. The last thing he wanted was the kids being startled out of sleep. They could stay dreamless for now, all he wanted was some blessed quiet.

He needed to take some time to regain his composure and nurse the migraine this ordeal had caused. Have a peaceful moment with some freshly brewed tea, yes. That was just what he needed.

He was just finishing curling up in one of the deepest and darkest crevices of his lair when a Nightmare came to let him know Jack had come in. Pitch threw his head back and groaned in exasperation. "Oh, you have _got_ to be kidding me."

* * *

After they had worked out the misunderstanding, Pitch had retreated back to his tea.

He really should have known better than to expect Jack to just sit still. Honestly, he was as bad as the rest of them.

It took about 40 minutes of Jack trying to play the stoic and serious Guardian before he finally broke. "Piiiiitch. I'm bored."

"No one is forcing you to stay, Frost," Pitch growled.

"But I can't leave the kids alone in your clutches."

"Then shut your gob. You're the one who took the blasted oath, I don't see why I should have to suffer for it."

"Hey, I know, why don't you introduce these kids to me? I bet that would be fun. " Jack said.

Pitch glared at the Guardian. "That would involve them having to be conscious."

"C'mon, you can't just keep them all in a coma until they can go back."

"I see no reason why that is not a completely reasonable and logical thing to do. They're hellions."

"I'm sure they aren't that bad. You're just terrible with children," Jack said, shaking his head.

"Is insulting others the usual way you try to convince them to do something you want?"

"Don't be like that. I'm really sorry, okay? I promise I'll keep them under control. Please?"

Pitch rolled his eyes, but got up to go to the cage. He snapped his fingers and the children blinked and yawned into bleary-eyed wakefulness. "Alright, listen up. If it was up to me, I'd just boil and eat the lot of you, but you're lucky enough to have a Guardian on your side. Santa Claus has a friend called Jack Frost, and he's here to watch over you like the meddlesome prat he is." Pitch glared over at Jack. "Do something."

A quick wave of his staff had white, fluffy snowflakes falling all around the children, who watched with wide-eyed wonder. They'd never seen anything like this before. Jack beamed.

"Right. They're your problem now." Pitch yanked open the door grumpily. "Keep up your end of the bargain, Frost." He slinked back into the shadows, trying to ignore the irritatingly bright peals of laughter that followed on the heels of Jack's latest tricks. Happiness and joy, ugh. It made his skin itch.

He'd come back later to drag the kids back to their harsh reality. For now, he had to go lock down the Halloween candy.


	37. Intercession

A whistling noise and the sound of a rapidly-nearing scream was barely warning enough for Jack to jerk out of the way of something that plummeted abruptly out of the sky and slammed into the ground with a loud THUD. He cautiously took a step forward to examine the large black shape at his feet.

Pitch was sprawled on his back in the snow, eyes closed, groaning. He looked like a complete mess, long limbs splayed out in all directions and his hair and robes in shambles.

"Pitch?" Jack said, wondering what had gotten the boogeyman in this state.

Yellow eyes snapped open. "Ja-" he was barely able to get a syllable out before a dreamsand whip wrapped around his ankle and yanked him forward. "Ah! No!" Pitch scrambled at the ground frantically, trying to find something to grab onto. Nothing but snow met his fingertips and he was flung across the clearing, crashing heavily into the trunk of a large and sturdy oak tree. He slid to the ground with a whimper. Pitch tried to get his motley arrangement of limbs into some semblance of working order again, but wasn't fast enough. The sandman floated into view, a glower on his face, and flicked another whip at Pitch.

Pitch flinched, throwing up his arms to try to shield himself, but the blow never landed. Instead, Jack leapt in between the two of them and thrust his staff in the way, catching the whip before it could reach the boogeyman.

There was a long moment of stunned silence after that, with Pitch and Sandy both staring at Jack in shock. Even Jack looked surprised, looking at his outstretched arm and staff in disbelief, as if asking them how they could betray him like this. Finally he seemed to pull himself together and sighed. "I thought we were past this, guys. Pitch, what did you do?"

Pitch growled and spat. "Since when do the Guardians need a reason to attack me?"

"Since whe- Do you mean to say that- I don't even-" Jack sputtered, clapping a hand to his forehead. "Are you seriously playing the victim here, Pitch? Did you pay attention to what happened the last few centuries at ALL?! You pretty much did nothing _but_ give them reasons to attack you!"

"So they claim. I don't see anything wrong with what I did," Pitch said, gathering himself into a more dignified position and straightening his robes.

"Of course you don't," Jack groaned exasperatedly. "I don't know why I asked. Sandy, what happened?"

Sandy reeled his whip in and created an image of a dolphin above his head, then had the creature shudder and twist into the form of a horse. It didn't change colour, of course, but Jack got the picture.

"He was messing with your dreams?" As far as Jack had been able to gather from the silent Guardian and the reticent boogeyman, Pitch and Sandy had recently come to an uneasy truce of sorts where they each sent dreams or nightmares to different people and generally stayed out of each other's way. Given what had happened last time Pitch had started directly corrupting Sandy's dreams, he wasn't surprised that Sandy had gotten defensive about it.

"Those children were mine by right, Sanderson!" Pitch snarled. "They had been watching nothing but horror movies the entire evening and you were going to give them dreams about _sea life_?! I was practically delivered a hand-written request for nightmares, you imbecile!"

Sandy glared at the boogeyman, and Pitch shrank back into a more defensive stance.

"Uh… He's actually kind of got a point there, Sandy." Jack said. "I mean, not with the insult. But if the kids are looking for thrills with late-night horror flicks, I think a heart-pounding nightmare is a pretty good way to end the night."

Sandy rubbed his chin in thought, then nodded reluctantly. A little dreamsand notebook flipped open and was scribbled in by a tiny pencil. Noted. He glanced over at the boogeyman and gave him the 'I'm watching you' gesture, then waved cheerily at Jack and flew off once more.

"Well, that was an interesting way to start my night," Jack remarked, slinging his staff over his shoulder and turning on his heel to look at Pitch. "You really should…" Jack trailed off when he noticed the way Pitch was staring at him. It was a really intense look of curiosity, interest and a touch of amazement, and it made Jack feel like Pitch wanted to dissect him and figure out how he ticked. "Uh… You're creeping me out here."

"You stood up to the Sandman for me." Pitch said, still staring as if Jack was something he had never seen before.

"I guess I did?" Jack replied hesitantly.

"You made Sanderson stop. Ha!" A little bubble of laughter escaped the boogeyman. Paired with the already disconcerting gaze, it made the hair on the back of Jack's neck stand on end. Pitch was on his feet now, circling around Jack and looking him up and down. "Are you ill? Did you recently take a blow to the head?"

"No, and stop _doing_ that."

Pitch stopped in front of Jack, eyes sparking with something that looked like hope. "Did you change your mind?"

"About what? Wait, about joining you? Uh, no." Jack said, taking a step back.

The spark died, and Pitch set his jaw. "Ah. A pity." He dropped his gaze and started to brush snow off of his sleeve.

"I'm not just going to watch you take a beating, Pitch. Well, unless I know you deserve it."

"Then you'll assist in administering it, I presume," Pitch said, mouth curling into a wry smile. "...I appreciate the assistance, in any case. Even if your reasons for doing so seem to make little sense."

"They'd really make sense to anyone but you, you know," Jack said, shaking his head.

"Oh, really? Well, I've always suspected that I was the only one who was actually sane on this planet."

"…That's not how sanity works, I don't think."

"Of course you would think that, you're one of the insane ones," Pitch replied with a shrug. "Now, the night is still young and I have work to do. Goodbye." He vanished without waiting for a reply.

Yep, definitely an odd night. Jack thought. If that was how Pitch reacted to Jack talking down Sandy, he was glad Pitch hadn't found out about the time he had faced down all the Guardians in defense of the boogeyman.


	38. Revisited Past

Personal visits by the boogeyman were something special. Terrifying and generally unwelcome, yes, but still special. He didn't have the time to visit just anyone, though he certainly would love to be able to bask in the night terrors of everyone on the planet. Unfortunately, being in more than one place at a time was still outside of his abilities.

Still, he did very much enjoy paying special attention to a few unlucky children. It was very satisfying to be able to hear the screams in person.

This particular child, no, teen had piqued his interest as a bit of an oddity. Still a believer, both in the Guardians and the boogeyman, in her late teens. Usually only kids that got personal and frequent visits from the Guardians, like Jamie Bennett, remained so steady in their faith. And to believe in him, too, despite having never been to one of his ever-growing Halloween affairs? Perhaps she was a bit simple, or something.

In any case, his curiosity had been roused and he figured he owed such a solid believer a personal visit. Give her a proper scare as a thank you.

He hadn't been expecting the girl to have such a bizarre and elaborate set-up in her room, so he hadn't been particularly careful or vigilant as he emerged from the shadows of her closet and stalked toward the bed. His first step into the room had his foot brought down on a rubber toy that made a irritating and loud _squeak._ Pitch only had an instant to notice that the floor was completely covered with squeaky toys before the girl in the bed sat up with a gasp and flicked on a flashlight to shine directly in his face.

Pitch hissed and recoiled at the sudden unpleasant light, shielding his eyes. A shadow darted out and flicked over the flashlight, blowing out the bulb and sending the room back into blessed darkness once more. Pitch bared his teeth in a snarl. "Did you truly think you could ward me off so easily, child?" he hissed, eyes narrowing. Shadows slithered out in front of him, clearing a path through the toys so that he could stride up threateningly to the bed without having a cacophony of squeaks ruin his entrance.

The girl shrieked, but not in the way he liked. This sound had no terror behind it, this was a cry of... joy? "It's you! It's really you!"

Pitch paused. Was this girl like the others he had encountered, who were under the impression he was some kind of demon they had summoned? Pitch had appreciated the amount of black that those teenagers had wore, but the implication that he was some kind of creature that could be called upon to do anyone else's bidding had angered him. After he was done with those wannabe creatures of darkness, they had slept with the lights on for weeks. Might it be time for another repeat performance? "And just who do you think I am, girl?" he asked.

"The boogeyman, of course! Pitch Black! I knew you would come!" The teenager was practically buzzing with excitement. "Oh, oh, can you tell me a scary story or something?"

Pitch glared at her, displeased at the lack of fear. "Asking for a bedtime tale from the boogeyman? Aren't you worried you'll get nightmares?"

"Well, that's really up to you, isn't it?" she asked with a grin.

Pitch was struck with a sense of deja vu. He knew that kind of smile, brazen and fearless completely in spite of having the Nightmare King standing before them. He'd endured it far too many times from a certain Guardian. "Jack Frost put you up to this, didn't he?" Pitch growled. "I'm going to kill him."

"What? No. I mean, I talked to Jack about you a bit, yeah. But it's kind of hard to be scared of someone who saved your life. Uh, sorry about that."

"Saved? I did no such thing!" Pitch protested.

"You don't remember? I mean, it was more than ten years ago, but that isn't very long for you, I don't think..."

"Ten years..." Pitch frowned. Oh, yes, that first Halloween. He had suffered a momentary lapse in judgement and rescued a small child, hadn't he? Yes, he could see the similarities in this teenager now. "Oh. You."

"You do remember!" The girl positively beamed in delight. "I kept that bag you gave me, you know." She opened a drawer in her bedside table and pulled out a small bag. "A keepsake, to make sure I wouldn't forget or pass it off as a dream. The candy's long gone, though."

Pitch stared at the object in the girl's hands. Just a cheap polyester bag, black and patterned with cobwebs. He remembered finding a box of those, abandoned in some dusty storehouse, and deciding to use them for treat bags for the ridiculous custom of candy-giving amongst the celebration of fear. He didn't particularly like it, but if Halloween was going to be his, he had resolved to do it correctly. Pitch had never thought that someone would attach any particular significance to the gifts, though; children were notoriously inconstant, a simple novelty could only be expected to hold their attention for a short period of time.

"I, um, never got to thank you." The girl was continuing to speak. "That's why I set this-" She gestured at the toy-strewn floor. "-up. So that if you came by to give me nightmares that I'd wake up and I wouldn't miss you. I tried just staying up at night, but that didn't work out very well. So, yeah, thanks. You're my hero."

Pitch snorted. "You're foolish to think that I would be interested in your thanks, and you're even more of a fool if you think that I am any kind of hero. It was a whim, scaring away that man, nothing more."

"They caught him, you know," she said, still seemingly unfazed. "They never did figure out what destroyed his car, though. Some kind of huge blade, it looked like."

A corner of Pitch's mouth twitched upwards slightly. "Yes, that _was_ quite cathartic. Though I really couldn't care less about his fate. And you know, if you were so set on talking to me, I'm not that difficult to find. All you had to do was attend one of the yearly Escapes. It would have saved you the trouble of this ridiculousness." He gestured at the squeaky toys.

"I'm not allowed to go out at night on my own, and certainly not at Halloween. This was my only chance," she replied, looking down at the sheets she had bunched in her hands.

"I see. Well, you've had your say now. I'm clearly not getting any fear out of this, so I'll be taking my leave." Pitch started to walk away from the bed.

"Wait! Please."

Pitch stopped and glared at the girl. "I'm not a hero. I'm not a Guardian. I don't just hang around children because they _want_ me to." Not that many wanted him around anyway. Well, except on Halloween. "And I am certainly not your friend. Spend time with Jack Frost if you're so eager for the company of an immortal. You seem to know him and he actually puts up with the kind of stupidity that children cause."

Oh, _now_ the teen was scared. Afraid she'd never see him again, _that_ was certainly a fear he'd never had aimed at him before. This was certainly turning out to be a night of surprises. "But there's so much I want to say still!" she said.

"So sorry to crush your dreams, girl. Oh, wait, no. I'm not. Killing dreams is what I do. You should really pick a better role model," Pitch drawled, taking a few more steps towards the shadows of the closet.

"Wait, wait! You like scaring people, right? Halloween's coming up. If... if you'll take me to the Escape this year, then my parents won't be able to find me. They'll be terrified."

"Oh?" Pitch turned and looked at the teenager. "Your parents have already been through a kidnapping scare once, and you would make them think their daughter has been stolen once more? On Halloween again, no less? You are a _dreadful_ child." A wide, toothy grin spread over his face. "I think I like you. ...I'll consider it."

The girl looked guilty now, but that still didn't stop her from talking. "My... My name is Kathy. Katherine. And I'll be waiting."

"I really don't care, girl. And don't hold your breath." Pitch faded back into the shadows.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry to subject you to an OC chapter. I just was compelled to finally write up what happened to that kid from way back in chapter 4. Next chapter's gonna feature her again, but after that we'll head back into normal fare for this fic, so feel free to skip it if you want.


	39. Capture

Katherine sat on the edge of her bed, jiggling one leg impatiently. Tonight was Halloween, and her overprotective parents had given her the usual spiel about staying in and staying safe. It's a school night, they said. Going out to a party would be irresponsible, and you never knew what might happen at the event, or on the way back home. Better to be sensible and have a good night's sleep.

The same argument they had been making for years now, once she had gotten too old to trick-or-treat (with her dad always one step behind her) and her friends had started having parties and visiting haunted houses instead. She'd never been allowed out to one, not unless her mom or dad had stuck to her like a burr the whole time and there was no fun in that.

Not that it mattered this year, as she had no intention of leaving her room until Pitch showed up. She'd wait up all night if she had to.

…Pitch would come, right?

But the night got later and later and there was not a sign of the boogeyman to be seen.

When her parents came to say goodnight and headed to bed themselves, she felt the pit of her stomach drop. Her bargaining chip was gone now, her parents probably wouldn't check up on her until morning, wouldn't notice even if she was taken away now. Maybe Pitch was just busy. It had to be a big night for him. He'd still show up, right?

Kathy struggled to fight down anxiety and doubt. He had to come. He had to. She'd waited so long. It wasn't too much to ask to want to have a conversation with him.

It was past midnight when she felt a chill run down her spine and suddenly there were shadows wrapped around her body, pinning her limbs. She would have screamed in surprise but a hand clamped over her mouth, stifling her cries.

"I've come to the conclusion that rescuing you was a mistake, girl," a voice hissed in her ear. "And it's one that I intend to correct tonight. Say goodbye to your home, you may never see it again!" Cold laughter was the last thing she heard before darkness swallowed her and she felt as though she was plummeting into a bottomless pit.

The blackness and the falling sensation went on just long enough for her to fear that she might be stuck like this forever, and suddenly there was gravel crunching underneath her shoes. Her knees buckled at the sudden return of reality and she fell heavily on her backside with a grunt. She gasped, desperately dragging air into her lungs as her eyes darted around to take in her new surroundings.

Huge, twisted, looming structures stood all around, outlined by the stars in the moonless night sky. Dim, flickering illumination was granted by a pitiful handful of grimy and tarnished streetlamps. Trash littered the ground, and there were a number of rusty, askew signposts on either end of the path she found herself on. Off to one side, there was a cluster of booths with barred, darkened service windows that stared like the empty eyes of a corpse.

An amusement park. She was in the middle of long-abandoned amusement park. Not another soul was in sight, nothing moved but for a faint, moaning breeze that plucked at her clothes and rustled through the trash on the ground.

She shivered, recalling the last threatening words she had heard before ending up here. Pitch didn't really mean it, did he? This was just a game, right? A trick? "Pitch?" she called hesitantly. No reply, not a hint of movement in this rusted, forgotten place.

It began to dawn on Kathy that she really didn't know _anything_ about the boogeyman. She'd talked to him for, what, all of five minutes? She'd mostly just arbitrarily assigned positive traits to a being that she'd met only momentarily a long, long time ago. He certainly didn't act as warmly or nobly as she had always assumed her savior would. Really, he'd been completely rude and distant at best and... downright threatening at worst. Maybe he really _did_ mean she would never see home again.

Fear slowly curled around her spine and she hugged herself tightly with a little whimper.

A shadow flickered out of the corner of her eye, and she turned just in time to see _something_ vanish amongst the concession booths. "P-Pitch?"

She gathered up her courage and got to her feet to go follow after whatever it was. The sounds of her footsteps crunching over gravel and crinkling through discarded wrappings felt almost deafening in the disquieting silence of the area. The noise of her breathing and of her heart thumping in her ears seemed to cover up whispers that she swore were just _barely_ on the range of her hearing, or maybe it was just her imagination. And was that another set of footsteps behind her, moving only when she did? Kathy whirled around quickly, but there was no sign of life in the abandoned buildings. Still, the hair on the back of her neck was prickling, and goosebumps were rising on her arms. Was she following after the thing, or was it stalking her?

Suddenly, there, another glimpse of the moving shadow, slithering into one of the waiting shelters for a roller-coaster. Both drawn to and scared of the only sign of life in this long-dead place, Kathy crept into the darker shadows of the shelter, eyes darting all around. "Pitch?" she asked for a third time, barely more than a whisper now.

A few grains of something ( _sand_?) fell onto her hair and shoulders and she jerked her gaze to the ceiling above her.

A centipede the size of a horse was perched in the rafters, slowly uncoiling down towards her, multi-faceted eyes glowing in the darkness and mandibles open wide.

Kathy let out the loudest scream she had ever heard and bolted out of the shelter, all thoughts in her mind gone but for escape. She swore she could hear the awful skittering of countless legs behind her, and it only made her run that much faster, tearing down pathways and around corners at a breakneck pace.

When her burning lungs and legs could carry her no further, Kathy collapsed against a fence, sobbing for breath and trying to calm her pounding heart before it managed to hammer its way through her ribs. A sudden noise made her gasp and spasm in fear, nearly falling over.

"Why, whatever is the matter, child? Is spending time with fear and darkness not as fun as you thought it would be?" a soft, taunting voice said.

Kathy looked around, but there was no physical sign of the boogeyman. She couldn't pinpoint where the voice was coming from. "I… I…" she stammered, trying to remember exactly _what_ she wanted to say.

"Oh no, you aren't bored of this already, are you? Shall I make it more interesting? Let's have a contest, shall we? I've taken something of yours. If you can find it before sunrise, I'll take you back home, safe and sound. If not… I'll be having more of my _particular_ brand of fun."

Kathy shivered at the coldness of that voice. "Taken something? What? Don't… Don't I get a hint?"

"A hint? Hmm, very well, how about this. _The shadows are darkest where the light is brightest_. That should be easy enough for a clever child such as yourself. Time's a wasting…" The voice, Pitch, seemed to fade and be gone.

Kathy bit her lip and checked her watch. About four hours to sunrise. …Just what would happen if she failed? She felt a chill run down her spine and shook her head. She'd just have to find whatever it was. That was all. She didn't have the faintest idea what the clue meant, though.

Still, this place couldn't be that big. She could search a fair chunk of it in four hours.

As she willed her shaking legs to carry her forward, she tried not to think about the possibility of more of those _things_ lurking in the shadows to ambush her.

* * *

An hour of fruitless search and jumping at every half-imagined noise later, Kathy was trying to fight down panic. It was impossible. There were too many paths to venture down, too many little corners to check and she couldn't even bring herself to go into most of the buildings because she had no idea what could be lurking inside. And every time she passed over a building that looked too shadowy, too creepy to search, she hated herself a little more for it. _That was it, that was the one that has what I'm looking for and I can't get it because I'm too much of a coward…_

She didn't even know what she was looking for. For all she knew, Pitch was lying and she'd never find anything, would never get back home. She felt tears start to sting her eyes.

One of the few streetlamps that held back the dark flickered and went out. She'd thought she couldn't get any more scared, but apparently she was wrong, because the thought of being trapped in this place alone in complete blackness sent a whole new wave of terror through her. "No, please…" she whispered, holding her breath as she watched the nearest streetlamp to the burnt-out one dim ever so slightly. She swore she could see the patch of shadows reach out hungrily towards that light. A few more valiant flickers and now that one was dead too.

Kathy whimpered and backed away, back down a pathway of still-functioning lights.

Another lamp went out.

The teen whirled and ran down the path, trying to stay ahead of the encroaching darkness.

* * *

The chase finally lead her to a part of the park she hadn't been to before, and before she knew it she found herself in front of what must have been the only attraction that actually seemed to be operational.

The haunted house, of course.

It was the only building that actually had its lights on, casting a sickly greenish glow out into the night.

_Where the light is brightest…_

Kathy took a few hesitant steps towards it, dread creeping through her. The park itself was bad enough. What sort of horrors would lurk in a place that was meant to be scary even before the boogeyman corrupted it?

She was at the door now, shaking hands on the handle. This was a horrible idea. It was probably a trap.

…It was her only chance.

She steeled herself and shoved the door open wide.

The entrance hallway, oddly enough, looked completely normal. It was decorated in a manner that was obviously intended to be spooky, yes, but it was the usual fare for chintzy theme park attractions, not the kind of bone-chilling foreboding that had seeped into everything else here. And, there. At the end of the hall, a table with a familiar little black treat bag, filled with candy as it had been all those years ago.

For the first time that night, Kathy thought she was more confused than scared. Then she remembered that she had a time limit to worry about, and started edging cautiously down the hallway, trying to watch everywhere at once, roof, ceiling, and walls. Something bad was going to happen, surely. But she had to get back her bag.

It seemed to take an eternity before she was able to stretch out and snatch it off of the table and cradle it protectively in her arms.

"Surprise," she heard from behind her, and suddenly she was falling through complete darkness again.

Kathy found herself back in her bedroom once more. She never thought she'd be so relieved to see those four walls again. Pitch abruptly appeared in front of her and she flinched and shrank back.

"So, was it everything you imagined?" he asked with a smirk.

"Wha- What?" she replied.

"The Escape. I put on a special one for you, since you've been so sorely deprived of Halloween fun…"

Katherine gaped at him. "Fun?!"

Pitch chuckled. "Well, fun for me at least. You are very entertaining, my dear."

"But… I… What would have happened if I had lost?"

"Why, I would have taken you back home eventually, of course. Kidnapping humans is more trouble than it's worth, you have all these pesky needs for things like food and water." The boogeyman grinned, showing all of his teeth. "But sunrise is around the time when your parents come to wake you up for school, isn't it? They would have found you missing, and that would have been just _wonderful._ It's really a shame you performed so admirably."

"So it was all just a trick?"

"Not very quick on the uptake, are we?" Pitch said in a bored tone. "In any case, I hope that I have successfully removed your illusions regarding my 'niceness'. And I wish you the best of luck in attending classes on, oh, two hours of sleep." He smirked once more and vanished.

Kathy blinked, still processing _what_ had just happened. Finally she looked down at the treat bag in her hands and felt a smile start to slowly spread over her face. "I don't know if all those illusions are gone..."


	40. Games

One of Jack's believers wasn't coming outside to play very often. Jack had dropped by to make sure everything was okay, since it was flu season and all.

It turned out that the kid had just been distracted by the latest video game he had gotten for Christmas and had been spending most of his free time on it. Jack was at first skeptical that tapping some buttons could possibly compare to romping around out in the snow, but the kid had roped him into trying it out and he had to admit, the game _was_ pretty fun. Okay, really fun.

Snowball fights were still better, of course, but he could definitely see the appeal of this.

He'd actually enjoyed it enough that when the kid told Jack he could keep playing while he went off to school, Jack had taken him up on the offer. He'd lost track of time, immersed in the intense, adventure-filled atmosphere that the game created.

Jack was just sending his character down a dark, unexplored path when something behind the couch he was sitting on made the awful, rattling hiss of the worst enemies in the game. He nearly jumped out of his skin, dropping the controller with a scream and scrambling for his staff. He whirled to come face-to-face with the grinning boogeyman, who looked far too pleased with himself. Jack let out a strangled sound of irritation, his heart still pounding from the fright. "Pitch, you jerk! You scared the heck out of me!"

Pitch's grin somehow grew even wider. "That's what I do, Jack. You really should have caught onto that by now."

"You're despicable," Jack muttered, glancing back to the TV just in time to see his unminded character meet an unfortunate and messy end. "Oh, for Pete's sake! I got so far that time too!" He glowered at Pitch. "I hope you're happy."

"Ecstatic," Pitch replied. "Though I must say, you know the King of Nightmares personally and you're going to some little _simulation_ to get an adrenaline rush? I'm a little insulted."

"I just wanted to see what the fuss was about, is all." Jack said, setting his staff aside and picking the controller back up. "And it's not just about getting scared, there's also a sense of satisfaction from improving your skills. Not everything is about you."

"I beg to differ. And if it isn't, then it should be."

"You are such a narcissist." Jack flopped back on the couch, then glanced sidelong at the boogeyman with a little grin. "You know, this thing does have multiplayer..."

* * *

"Oh, man, you are awful at this!" Jack laughed as he sniped Pitch's character for the fifth time.

The boogeyman snarled, ferociously mashing buttons. "It's hardly my fault! This device is _completely_ unintuitive! And this person lacks teleportation abilities! I've never had to deal with strategizing under these conditions!"

"You big baby. You don't hear me whining about how my character can't fly, do you?" Jack taunted.

Pitch growled, and suddenly there was nightmare sand slithering over Jack, tracing feather-light touches over his sides, armpits and neck, all of the most ticklish places on the Guardian. Jack squawked and flailed, falling off of the couch.

Pitch took advantage of the Guardian's distracted state to sneak up behind his character and finish him off. "Ahahaha! Revenge!" he cackled.

"You- you cheater!" Jack gasped from the floor, and the sand vanished as though it had never been.

"Cheat? Me?" Pitch held a hand to his chest, looking down at Jack with a shocked and innocent expression. "You must be mistaken. I would certainly never stoop to such disgraceful means. That would be the action of a _villain._ "

"You're literally the worst."

"Flattery will get you nowhere, Jack." Pitch turned back to the screen and and tapped a few buttons. "Haha, got you again."

"I really, really don't know why I put up with you." Jack muttered.

"I always assumed it was because of my winning personality and devilishly good looks." Pitch said with a straight face. "Now, are you going to sulk on the floor all day? It's hardly any fun killing you if you don't put up a fight. Though I still will, of course."

"You have all the charm of a seasick alley cat, Pitch. And you asked for it." Jack settled into a cross-legged position on the floor and picked his controller back up, seeming to focus on the game once more.

The shriek that the boogeyman made when a sudden draft dumped a load of snow down the back of his robes was really quite impressive.

And to say that the boy was surprised when he came back home after school and stumbled across this scene would be a bit of an understatement.


	41. Energy

Pitch was trying some to create some new things with his Nightmare sand. It was taking more practice than he thought it would, at least to make anything semi-sentient. Nightmares just came about naturally from it, and the Hellhounds were just tweaking the form and focus of the fear a little from sleeping to waking. But something like that centipede... Well, they ended up more like puppets than minions. Maybe the lack of mental capacity of the base creature?

Well, he wasn't about to give up. Maybe so many legs made things too complicated. He'd try something a little simpler now.

Once he'd perfected them, he really couldn't wait to hear Jack's screams when he faced down the horse-sized spiders next Halloween. That would be glorious. He loved phobias, they were so easy to exploit.

A sudden chill breeze blew over the nape of his neck and he hurriedly squashed his miniature test creature. He wanted it to be a surprise, after all, and it seemed as though Jack was dropping in for a visit once more.

He turned around just in time to see the Guardian come barreling towards him at top speed. A shocked “Gah!” was all he managed to get out before he was bowled over and the two of them tumbled head-over heels down a flight of stairs. When they finally came to a halt and the world stopped spinning, Pitch found himself staring into a disgustingly bright smile.

"Hahaha! Hi, Pitch! Startling isn't so fun when the shoe is on the other foot, is it?"

"I'm not going to dignify that with an answer. Now, get off of me," Pitch growled, shoving the Guardian away and getting back to his feet. He brushed off his robes and gave the Guardian a glare. "And that wasn't startling, that was  _tackling_."

"Oh, but you were surprised by it, so it counts as both! Them's the rules!" Jack leapt back into a standing position. He was grinning from ear to ear and practically vibrating with gleeful energy. "And that also means that I win, heehee!"

Pitch stared blankly at Jack. He seemed even more excitable than he usually was, which Pitch honestly hadn't thought possible.

Jack didn't seem to mind or notice the fact that Pitch wasn't responding, but continued to babble on happily, bouncing in place. "Hey, don't you ever get bored of being cooped up in your lair all the time? I mean, I get bored sometimes and I don't even  _have_ anywhere to be penned in, really. The sky is the limit for me, and sometimes even that's not enough! I really wanted to go out to space one day, you know, but the wind can't go out there, so I don't know how I'm supposed to. I tried to hitch a ride on a shuttle once but it was too hot and too hard to hang on to. Do you think Manny would mind if I popped in for a visit once I work out how to get there?"

"…Are you purposefully endeavoring to be even more annoying than usual? Or have you finally just lost your mind?" Pitch asked, taking a step back from the energetic Guardian.

"Oh, no, I just got introduced to a new drink today. Jamie gave me some, um, expresso, yeah! It was really tasty! Well, he didn't really give it to me, I guess, but it was on the table and how was I supposed to know it was for other people?"

Pitch was still trying to gather his composure in the face of this strange scenario. All he could think was:  _I cannot believe that this thing was allowed to consume caffeine. Giving a chimpanzee a firearm would be a safer and more sensible thing to do._

Jack had created some snowballs and was juggling them, still talking. "But, yeah, after I drank a couple of those, or five or six, he made me leave because I was making it snow everywhere. Not very nice of him, I think. Really, he should learn to respect his elders. I'm a senior citizen, after all!" He suddenly threw his hands up in the air and beamed, the snowballs dropping, forgotten, to the ground. "Oh, oh! I can get discounts on movie tickets and things! I'm definitely over 65!"

Finally Pitch managed to cut into the stream of nonsense and say, "For one thing, you don't have identification to prove that, and you hardly look, or act, your age. Besides, you don't have to pay admission anyway, they can't see you." …Wait, why was he even talking about this? Oh no, was the insanity contagious?

"Hah! You're right! I can watch all the free movies I want! That's awesome!"

"Yes, you should definitely go take advantage of that. Right now. Don't let me stop you."

"That's a great idea! I'll just-" Jack started to float off, but abruptly stopped. “Wait, you’re trying to trick me!”

“I would never dream of such a thing.”

“Yeah, you are, you’re trying to distract me from what I came here to do!”

Pitch was almost afraid to ask. “Oh? And what would that be, aside from assaulting me?”

“I, uh…” Jack stroked his chin pensively for a moment, then an epiphany seemed to dawn on him. “Ahah! I remember now!” Fast as lightning, he zipped behind the boogeyman and hooked his arms under Pitch’s armpits, lifting him off of the ground.

“Jack! Put me down right now!” Pitch snarled.

“Haha, no. You’re coming with me!” Jack started to fly the both of them out of the lair.

“I demand that you let me go!” Pitch thrashed furiously. Held off the ground like this, he couldn’t touch any shadows and vanish into them. And he couldn’t seem to break Jack’s hold.

“Nope!” the Guardian replied cheerily. “See, after Jamie kicked me out I got a bunch of kids together for a snowball fight but there wasn’t enough! It was boring, no fun at all. And then I thought, hey, Pitch lives around here! Getting him involved would make things interesting, I can’t believe I’ve never had a snowball fight with the boogeyman before. And I bet he would like it too!”

“You would lose that bet, you little brat!”

“You know, it won’t kill you to drop that ‘I hate everything’ act once in a while, Pitch.”

“It’s not an act!”

“Whatever. We’re here!” Jack dropped Pitch in the middle of a large field. It was knee-deep in snow, the kind that was perfect for packing into snowballs. There seemed to be over a hundred children romping in the area, shrieking joyously and pelting each other with snow. Most of them stopped to stare, though, as an enraged boogeyman was dropped into their midst.

Pitch’s glare was positively poisonous by this point, his face twisted in anger. He opened his mouth as if to scream more invectives, but abruptly stopped. He closed his eyes and heaved a sigh. When he opened them he looked much calmer, yet somehow more menacing. “You want to play? Fine. Let’s _play_.”

Towering waves of nightmare sand suddenly rose up all around the boogeyman, sending the children near him scrambling away. The sand gathered and swirled into an enormous cylinder, then just as suddenly dropped, slithering away under the snow. The kids looked at their buried feet in worry, and Pitch looked up to smirk at Jack.

He raised his hand and all of the snow in the field was lifted off of the ground by a thin layer of nightmare sand. Pitch snapped his hand forward and the entire load of it was hurled at the Guardian, driving him to the ground and burying him under 6 feet of the stuff.

By the time Jack managed to dig himself out, the kids were all laughing at him and Pitch had vanished into the shadows once more.


	42. Snowmen

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm sorry, this chapter is extremely silly. Don't mind me.

Pitch was back in this lair, doing what he did best. Plotting.

Out of his right mind or not, the flippant way that Jack treated him could not be allowed to stand. He was the Nightmare King, the Boogeyman, not some playmate for the Guardian of Fun to drag around at his leisure.

The snow burial was a good start, but it was hardly enough to soothe Pitch's stung pride.

Oh, no, Jack Frost would pay.

And Pitch had just the thing.

* * *

It had taken a little bit of waiting for the caffeine to finally wear off (during which Pitch stayed firmly in shadow form, he was not going to have to deal with that insanity again) and for Jack to wake up from the untwitching slumber he fell into when he crashed (Pitch had to resist the urge to draw a mustache on him, that was not behavior suiting the King of Nightmares).

But soon enough the Guardian was back on his feet, spreading winter and playing with kids again.

For this little trick Pitch had to venture out into the world while it was still daylight, something he detested. The sunlight stung his eyes, but sticking to the shadows made watching for his opportunity bearable.

There, finally, Jack was building snowmen with a group of children. Time for Pitch to try out his new idea.

He let a fistful of nightmare sand slither out over the snow and slip inside of a snowman as Jack was putting the finishing touches on it, plopping an old hat on its head and straightening its scarf. The coal eyes glinted for an instant, but Jack had already turned around to check on how the other kid's snowmen were going. A little girl was the first to notice something was amiss when the snowman's head slowly turned to face her and blackened ice crystals formed a sharp-toothed grin over its face.

Her scream was delightful.

The other children and Jack quickly took note of the situation when the snowman lumbered forward and snagged one boy's hat off of his head. Soon the entire group of kids was running for it, pursued by the snowy monstrosity. Jack stood dumbstruck for an instant, then his eyes zeroed in on the dark patch of shadows Pitch was lurking in.

"Pitch, I know you're there, you buttface! Turn my snowman back right now!"

"But I like it better this way," Pitch said with a smirk, becoming more solid and visible.

"Well, decide whether you prefer it staying that way or you continuing not to be encased in ice, because only one of those things is going to happen!"

"Was that a threat? How precious." His eyes flicked to the snowman. The children were long gone, having outrun the creature, and it was now coming back this way. "But I suppose I already have ruined an entire afternoon of play for you, haven't I?" He shrugged and snapped his fingers.

Nothing happened.

The snowman continued to move.

Pitch's eyes narrowed and he snapped his fingers again.

"Pitch, stop messing around."

"It's not working!" Pitch exclaimed. "Why isn't it-"

The snowman lumbered up to one of its inanimate counterparts and sank its fangs into it. The bitten snowman shuddered and came to life as well.

"Pitch, you-"

"I'm not doing it!" The boogeyman said, a little frantically. "I can't call the nightmare sand back!"

The snowmen had taken this moment to infect two more of their compatriots, and now there were four of them to worry about.

"Oh no." Jack and Pitch said almost simultaneously.

* * *

"How can these things even move? They don't have any feet!" Jack yelled exasperatedly as the two of them rushed through town to try to corral the rapidly-growing number of zombie snowmen.

"I don't know! I blame your influence, you're always doing nonsensical things with snow and ice. Like skating in bare feet, how does that even work?" Pitch snapped.

"Yeah, because phasing through shadows is oh so rational, right?"

"But they're not teleporting, thank the darkness! Look, there's one, blast it!"

Jack sent a flurry of ice at the creature. It stuck to the snowman, but the thing didn't even slow down.

"Great job there, you just made it bigger!"

"You're the one who told me to shoot it!"

"What are we supposed to do about things that just absorb whatever we can throw at them?" Pitch didn't like to think about what would happen if the snowmen got more nightmare sand. He hadn't thought that mixing Jack's fun-infused snow with his nightmare sand would pose such a problem for his control.

"I don't know! I think we should call in the other Guardians!"

"No! They'll blame me for the whole mess!"

"It's completely your fault!"

"That's beside the point!" Pitch snapped. He paused for an instant. "Wait, I have an idea! Jack, try to gather up as many of them as you can in some kind of cage or something, I'll deal with the stragglers." The boogeyman ducked into a shadow and vanished.

"So help me, Pitch, if your idea is for you to scamper off and leave me to deal with this on my own…" Jack muttered, but he did as he was told anyway, forming a holding pen out of ice and using the wind to blast snowmen into it. Finally it seemed as if he'd collected all of them, he couldn't spot any more on his flyovers of the town.

Pitch showed up shortly afterwards, sauntering along the top of the ice walls. "You know, these things are really quite fascinating, it's a shame I can't control them."

"Pitch," Jack said warningly.

"Yes, yes, alright." He waved a hand and shadows rose up to swallow the snowmen, dragging them away to locations unknown.

"Where'd you send them?"

"The Sahara. The heat should take care of the problem for us."

The headlines for that town's newspaper  _were_  a bit odd the next morning, though.


	43. Fears

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oops, used up all my silly again, sorry! I really need to ration it out better. Instead, have a short and serious monologue of sorts. Normalcy should return soon.

Pitch could always tell when children started to grow up, when their innocence was lost.

It was when they realized that there were so many things in the world to fear aside from the monster under the bed.

Those fears that made girls clutch their keys between their fingers walking home at night. The fears of a boy in a hospital, clutching a loved one's hand and not knowing if this was the last time they would ever meet. The fears of a gangly teenager who knew he would be thrown out into the street by his parents and ostracized by his friends if found out how he felt inside, what he was. The fears of a girl who crouched in a lightless building with her siblings, holding her breath and praying that the soldiers outside do not find them.

He'd tasted all those flavours and hundreds more like them in his millennia of existence.

And for the majority of it, he'd enjoyed them just as much as any other fear. The appearance of these anxieties tended to mark the fading of the child's faith in the Guardians, too, but it was just the cherry on top of the treat. The dawning terror of realization, of veils being ripped away from their eyes, that was something sweet, something to be savored. Or at least, it used to be.

It was only recently that he was starting to find them a little… bitter. Only recently that he started to feel resentment towards these fears, like he was seeing them in a new light.

He told himself this was because those children were supposed to be  _his_. He found joy in most, if not all fears, it was true, but by far his favorite flavour was the pure, simple type that was terror of the boogeyman. They should pay attention to  _him_.

The greatest fear that anyone held should be of the  _boogeyman_. But it never was, not for long, and this irked him more than he liked to admit.

Recently he decided that perhaps the most galling were the children who were torn away from him and dragged into reality far too early, driven to maturity beyond their years by circumstances and the actions of monsters in the world he had no hand in creating.

He only had a few short, splendid years where it was simply the imagination of the child, and a nudge from yours truly, that provided all the entertainment he could ever want. That  _any_  number of those nights of fright would be stolen from him filled him with rage.

And yet time marched inexorably onwards. Horrors that he, infuriatingly, had no command over happened again and again. And little by little, children transformed into adults. He had no power over the sands of time, nor of the actions that men and women took.

So sometimes, when it came time for the adolescents and adults of the world to have nightmares, Pitch would pass over those mature fears, the ones that truly struck terror into their waking hearts. Instead he'd dredge up long-forgotten, long-dismissed frights, of vampires and zombies, lurking shadowy creatures and other things that go bump in the night. Let them know that while they might have forgotten him, he certainly hadn't returned the favour.

And in this world of harsh realities and broken hearts, for a little while, Pitch would offer his own kind of escape.


	44. Rink

Jack crouched at the edge of his lake with his hood drawn up and one arm slung across his knees. The other hand was using his staff to doodle designs in frost on the water's frozen surface. The kids he normally skated with on it had all been bundled away into the new indoor skating rink that had been opened in town.

And Jack got it, he did. He was no stranger to kids having fun indoors in the winter time. Not everyone had the same affinity for cold that he did. It was good that kids had things to do indoors when their fingers and toes started to go numb from the chill outside. He was the Guardian of all types of fun, not just the ones that had to do with him directly, after all. Video games, reading, drawing, he could appreciate the quieter, stiller enjoyments as well, even if he preferred more active pursuits himself.

But this, this  _hurt_. Skating and hockey were things that could just as easily be done outside as indoors. He'd made perfectly good rinks for people to enjoy, and they'd turned to stifling, enclosed, unnatural options instead.

It wasn't the kids' fault, of course. Their parents had decided that it was better to have them in a walled-in location where they weren't likely to wander off and could be left with coaches for lessons in skating, hockey, ringette, etcetera. Plus, the ice was carefully maintained and there were no worries about thin ice when it was only a floor a few inches below the surface.

Jack could see the logic in that. He was the result of a skating outing gone awry, after all. He'd  _never_  allow any child under his watch to fall through, of course. The thinnest of ice thickened safely within his presence. But the adults never saw him, never knew that he was safeguarding the kids. And they worried for their children's safety, he got it.

But it just felt as though he was being pushed out of the few niches that he had. Seeing snowmaking machines on ski hills gave him the same sort of sick, unwanted feelings.

_Oh, no, Jack, we don't need you. You're too messy, too uncontrollable. We want something nice and predictable instead. Just go back to being invisible, why don't you?_

Jack bit his lip and rapped his staff hard against the ice, sending spiraling ferns of frost lancing over the entire surface of the lonely lake.

"Mmm. I haven't been treated this particular flavour of fear in a long time, Jack. Honestly, it's making me feel a little nostalgic." A dark, looming shadow was cast across the ice next to him. Jack didn't bother to look up.

"Hi, Pitch." Jack said tiredly.

"Feeling a bit out of sorts, are we?"

"I'm really not feeling up to this right now. Just… leave me alone." Jack said with a sigh.

"Ah, yes, just like the good old days. You feeling all alone and isolated and telling me to shove off," Pitch replied airily. "Though I think you've got the roles reversed, here.  _I'm_  supposed to be the gloomy, brooding one.  _You're_  the disgustingly cheery brat."

Jack snorted. "Oh, don't worry, I'm sure I'm not able to hold a candle to one of your world-class sulks, Pitch. You still hold the top spot on the gloom-and-doom spectrum."

"You have no idea how relieved I am to know that." The boogeyman said dryly. "What is it that's got you so sour today?"

"Mmph. Skating rink." Jack mumbled into his sleeve.

"Ah." Pitch was silent for a while, and Jack lapsed back into his thoughts. By the time Jack realized that it was rather strange for the boogeyman to shut up for so long and looked up, Pitch was gone.

* * *

The Burgess Indoor Skating Rink had an eventful week.

First just little things. The lights started to flicker intermittently, and particularly seemed to do so when there was just one person alone in the locker rooms, the hallways, the concession booth. Calling in an electrician to check the fuses and the connections turned up nothing.

Then the locker room incidents started. People swore that they had left their belongings one locker to the right of where they were found. The next day, the stuff somehow was all shifted two lockers over when everyone left the room. The third day, the belongings were moved right to the opposite end of the room from where they originally were.

The contents of all the maintenance closets swapped with each other on the fourth day. The janitors almost had a fit, especially since the lights were  _still_  flickering every time they came by after hours to clean.

The Zamboni broke down on the fifth day. The repairman said that there were probably a dozen gaskets and bolts missing when he opened it up.

The missing parts were later found scattered around underneath the bleachers.

First, they figured it was probably the kids playing jokes on them, somehow. But an overview of the security camera footage from near the doors to the locker rooms, as well as the footage from the storage rooms, turned up not a sign of anyone.

Though there was one camera that had apparently had some kind of glitch. Near midnight, for about thirty seconds, the picture suddenly cut to static and flickered between that and utter blackness. Then it went back to normal, boring footage again.

O'Malley  _swore_  he could see a figure looming in the dark of that footage. And that it was  _smiling_  at him.

No one else could make out anything, even when they looked at it frame by frame. O'Malley didn't come back to the rink after that, saying that he knew better than to tangle with spooks.

On the sixth day, they came in that morning to find that all of the windows had been opened and snow had been blown in all over the place.

The seventh day seemed to see subtlety thrown to the wind, because there had been a message carved into the ice of the skating rink by what appeared to be a very large, very sharp blade.

' _GET OUT'_

After that, the owner decided that it was maybe wise to go take a vacation in a nice, warm,  _bright_  locale and close the skating rink for a bit.

* * *

Jack landed on the roof of the rink just as a shadow poured out of the ventilation duct and coalesced into the shape of the boogeyman. Pitch looked far too pleased with himself.

"Jeez, I have a bit of a down day, mention a skating rink, and the next thing I find out you've decided to  _haunt_  the whole place? Really?" Jack asked.

"Maybe it was just a whim," Pitch replied with a shrug. "I can have fun if I want to, and this was a lot of fun. I've forgotten how much I enjoy a good old-fashioned haunting."

Jack shook his head and sighed, ducking his head to hide his smile. "…I'm going to have to watch everything I say around you, aren't I?"

"You don't already? You don't watch to make sure you don't give me something I could use against you, against the Guardians? Careful, Jack, or some people might come to the conclusion that you trust me or something," Pitch drawled, clasping his hands behind his back and staring out over the town.

"But I do," Jack said simply as he idly spun his staff between his fingers.

The boogeyman froze. "…What?"

Jack cocked his head to one side. "Trust you. I mean, we've been hanging out for  _years_  now. I wouldn't be a very good friend if I didn't have some faith in you after all that, would I?"

Pitch whirled on Jack, fixing him with a long, appraising stare. Yellow eyes flicked over Jack's face, seeming to search for something hidden there. Twice Pitch's mouth opened as if he was about to say something, but he snapped it shut both times. Finally, he clenched his jaw and turned away from the Guardian, hands curling closed as though he was trying to hold onto something. "You're a fool, then. A fool and a liar," he finally said, flatly.

"What? I am not! Pitch, you cannot seriously be-" Jack started to say, but the boogeyman vanished. "…Surprised about this. What's  _his_  problem?" The Guardian of Fun glanced around to see if Pitch was just lurking somewhere nearby. Not as far as he could tell. It looked like the boogeyman was long gone. What had set him off? "Weirdo," Jack muttered with a shrug.


	45. Trial

Jack didn't have nightmares.

He hadn't had so much as a single unpleasant dream for years now.

So it was a bit of a shock when he woke, gasping, from a doozy of one. He laid his arm across his face and groaned. Something to do with fire, he thought. He couldn't remember much now, the finer details were trickling out of his mind like water through a sieve. There was definitely flames, though, and screaming too.

"Just a nightmare." He muttered, shaking his head. He sat up to discover another unpleasant surprise. He was in one of the cages in Pitch's lair. "What?'

The sound of hundreds of little peeps and chitters drew his attention to several of the other prisons. In the cages next to his, Toothiana's entire workforce of mini-fairies was confined. Jack's brow furrowed in confusion. He peered through the bars, looked down, and saw the heaping mounds of tooth containers piled on the floor of the lair. Just like it had been before, a long time ago.

What was going on?

Jack tried the door of his cage and, unsurprisingly, found it locked. His staff was nowhere to be seen, either. "Pitch?" he called out, but there was no answer from the shadows.

There was a peep, however, from outside of the cage. Jack glanced downwards to see Baby Tooth climbing up the bars towards the lock, lugging a key slung over her shoulder that was almost as big as she was. Jack's face broke into a smile at the sight of his friend.

"Rescuing me, huh? I owe you one, Baby Tooth." Jack said, and the fairy gave him a smile in return, continuing her climb.

Sudden movement caught his eye and he lifted his gaze just in time to see a Nightmare loom out of the shadows and snap at Baby Tooth. Jack gasped and reached through the bars, grabbing her out of the way just as the creature's teeth clicked shut around the space she had occupied an instant earlier. The Nightmare shrieked in displeasure and struck its hooves against the bars, sending deafening clangs echoing through the cavern. Jack flinched backwards, curling protectively around Baby Tooth.

The bars prevented the Nightmare from getting at either of them, and after a few failed attempts to kick through, the creature whirled and charged off into the shadows once more.

"We'd better get out of here," Jack said, and Baby Tooth nodded in vehement agreement. She unslung the key from her shoulder and put it on Jack's palm. He unlocked the door and pushed the door open with a creak.

Jack eyed the far-off ground apprehensively. Without his staff, he couldn't fly, and it looked as though none of the mini-fairies or Baby Tooth were able to either. Just like before.

…Before what? Jack frowned and shook his head, trying to clear this thoughts. The Guardians had won, right? And… and he and Pitch were friends? Did that happen? His memory seemed a little fuzzy. Then why were he and the fairies trapped down here again? What was happening?

Baby Tooth patted his wrist and cheeped reassuringly. Jack shoved his confusion aside. He'd try to figure out that mystery when he was outside. "It's alright, Baby Tooth, I'll get us out of here," he said, placing her on his shoulder and swinging down so that he was hanging from his fingers from the bottom of the cage.  _The drop's not so bad,_ he told himself, and let go.

He landed on the piles of tooth containers hard, knees buckling and sending him sprawling down the slope of the mound. He finally came to a halt, wincing in pain. A moment's later inspection seemed to turn up nothing broken or sprained, just a fair amount of bruises. Baby Tooth seemed shaken, but unharmed. He clambered to his feet and looked up at the other mini-fairies in the cages. "Sorry, guys. I promise I'll come back and get you out as soon as I can."

Jack slid and stumbled off of the piles of tooth containers and, with no real idea of  _where_  he was supposed to go, headed down one hallway at random. Didn't he used to know this place pretty well? Why couldn't he remember where the exit was?

The path led him to the room that held Pitch's rusted globe. The sight of it made a shiver run down Jack's spine. It was dark. No lights glimmered on the surface of the continents.

No, there was one. A single, dim and flickering speck of light, of hope. "Oh no. Jamie!" Jack gasped, closing the distance to the structure and pressing his hand to the little spark as if he could reach out to and reassure the child that it represented.

He couldn't, of course. He had to get there in person. Jack felt a twinge of wrongness, like something was telling him that this wasn't how things were supposed to be.

Well,  _obviously_  this wasn't how things were supposed to be. Jack shoved aside his trepidations. He had more important things to worry about than some nagging feelings of unease. "We've gotta get out of here, Baby Tooth. Jamie needs us."

Baby Tooth chirped and tugged on his hood, pointing at one wall.

"Hm?" Jack followed her lead, walking to the patch of shadowed rock. "What's so important-" His eyes fell on a crack in the stone that he had mistaken for a patch of shade. Barely six inches wide at its largest point, but it seemed to lead to another room in the lair, and there, propped against the far wall of that room, lay his staff. Jack gasped and tried to squeeze through the crevice, but it was no use. Jamming his arm though the crack and straining at his utmost didn't even allow the tips of his fingers to brush his weapon. Jack sighed and pulled back.

"Well, at least we know where it is. We'll have to find another way arou-" Jack started to say, but Baby Tooth hopped off of his shoulder and slipped through the hole. "Baby Tooth, no!" Jack hissed, motioning for her to come back. "What if a Nightmare come back? You've gotta stick with m-"

"Out of your cage, Jack? Naughty, naughty. How did you even manage that?" A cold voice from behind him drawled, and Jack whirled around, pressing his back protectively to the crack in the wall.

Pitch stood several feet away, looking at Jack as if he were something particularly distasteful. A Nightmare trotted out of the shadows and came to his side, whickering. Pitch glanced at it, frowned, and looked back to Jack. "Ah. I must have missed one of Toothiana's little winged rats. Unfortunate, but easily enough rectified."

"Pitch, what are you doing?" Jack demanded.

"Really, Jack, I know you're not the sharpest tool in the shed, but even you should be able to figure  _this_  one out. I'm getting rid of the Guardians. And, since you so foolishly declined my offer of equal footing, you're my newest little plaything," the Nightmare King replied darkly, taking a step forward.

Jack clutched his head as he felt it again, that twinge of  _wrongness_. "No, this isn't right. You wouldn't… We… we're friends."

Pitch gave him an incredulous look. "Oh my, have I broken you already? I would have thought that your mind would stand up to a couple dozen nightmares better than that, but you're already lapsing into delusions? Really?" And suddenly Pitch was in front of him, hoisting Jack up by the front of his hoodie, their faces inches apart. "Or is this some form of Stockholm Syndrome setting in?" he asked softly, a malicious smirk across his face. Jack could feel the man's hot breath on his cheeks and lips. "Thinking that you might be treated better if you suck up to me now? It's far too late for that, Jack." Pitch threw him roughly against the wall.

Jack grunted and slid to his knees, winded.

"Are we thinking a little clearer now, boy?"

"… No, this is a trick, or something." Jack said, shaking his head. More memories were filtering back now. Pitch pulled this sort of thing all the time, didn't he? Acting like the bad guy. Well, not so convincingly, perhaps, but still…

"Still deluded, I see."

There was a peep and Jack's staff was shoved through the crack and fell to the floor beside him. Jack snatched it up, picking Baby Tooth up, more gently, as well.

Was that a spark of triumph in Pitch's eyes? "Oh, so you were biding time for your little friend to retrieve your weapon. Clever. But it will take more than that little stick to turn the tide."

Nightmares reared into existence all around him. Jack grinned and shot upwards, soaring up out of their reach. Pitch didn't know what he was talking about, now that Jack could fly it would be a piece of cake to get out of here. And once he was out in the open, Pitch would go back to normal and reveal that of course there had never been any danger, right? Jamie was fine, and so were all the other kids, they had to be.

Piece of cake was maybe a bit of an overstatement, though. He'd tucked Baby Tooth into his hoodie pocket for safekeeping, and it was a good thing too, considering the aerial maneuvers he was having to pull off in order to keep out of the teeth of the pursuing Nightmares.

He didn't see any Hellhounds at all, oddly.

Finally he caught a glimmer of moonlight shining down into the lair. The exit! Jack arrowed for the opening, but a grinding noise brought him up short. The stone around the exit was closing. He didn't even know that was possible!

Already the opening was too small for him to get through. Jack hissed under his breath and fished out Baby Tooth. "Be safe, okay?" he whispered before tossing her out the hole. The sound of her peeping protests was cut off as the opening snapped shut.

Jack turned around just in time for a Nightmare to ram into him and send him spiraling downwards to land heavily on a bridge spanning a deep and dark crevasse.

"Really, was that your best effort? You're more pathetic than I thought."

"Pitch, stop messing around," Jack said, getting up and facing Pitch down.

"Do you think this is some sort of game, boy?" Pitch asked, eyes narrowing.

"I know it is," Jack said with a shrug.

"You're never going to escape if you don't take this seriously, Jack," the boogeyman hissed. "You're holding back, and that's going to cost you and your poor little Jamie dearly."

"I don't believe you, Pitch. You're not like this, and you don't fool me." Jack looked at the staff in his hand, then back to the boogeyman. "I said I trusted you, and I do." In one swift movement, he flung his staff over the edge of the bridge, where it plummeted into darkness and vanished. Jack spread his arms wide and lifted his chin, giving Pitch a grin. "So go on. Do your worst."

A look of utter shock covered the boogeyman's face for a moment. Then he threw back his head and laughed. "You really  _are_  a fool, Jack!" He flicked a hand and a towering wave of nightmare sand crested behind the boogeyman and rushed towards the Guardian. Jack didn't so much as move, and the sand washed over his unresisting form, drowning his senses in blackness.

The darkness consumed Jack.


	46. Deliberation

Jack abruptly woke up, lying on the ice of his lake with his staff beside him. He smirked. "I knew it."

* * *

Pitch roared his displeasure and hurled a dusty chair across the room to shatter against the wall.

That wasn't supposed to happen!

Jack wasn't supposed to act that way!

He'd crafted the nightmare perfectly! He'd played off the boy's fears! He'd shown Jack just what he was capable of, reminded him of when they were  _enemies_! He'd played the part of the villain perfectly- No, he  _was_  the perfect villain, he wasn't just playing a part! Jack should have tried to blast him away! Why hadn't there even been the slightest flicker of fear or doubt at the end?

This was supposed to prove Jack wrong! That blasted trust was supposed to be a lie! It had to be a lie!

He wasn't trustworthy! He was the  _Nightmare King_!

Jack was trying to trick him, had to be trying beguile him into… something. He was sure of it! It made no sense otherwise!

Maybe, maybe he'd gone too easy with the nightmare. Hadn't raised the stakes enough. He could have done far worse, looking back on it now. Jack had never given much thought to himself. Self-sacrificing to a fault, just like the rest of those idiotic Guardians. Jack's weakness and strength lay in the same place, in the children he protected. If he'd harmed the shade of a child in front of Jack, that surely would have made him snap…

But he had only wanted to put Jack on the defensive, only scare him a bit and prove that, hah,  _of course_  he didn't trust in the boogeyman, not make the Guardian hate him.

…Why didn't he want Jack to hate him?

Well, that had an easy answer. Jack was the only thing standing between the Guardians and him; he knew that very well. He still wasn't strong enough to try to take the Guardians on yet.

It had nothing to do with the fact that he enjoyed Jack's company; that the constant, aching loneliness that he'd known his entire existence vanished when the Guardian came to bother him. The fact that he cared about Jack didn't factor in at all.

Wait, cared about  _Jack_? About a  _Guardian_? Where had that thought come from? That wasn't something he should be thinking!

Oh no, he was going mad. That was the only explanation for this bizarre behavior. That was it, this was the end. After a lifetime of humiliation and failure, he'd finally been driven round the bend. Next thing he knew, he'd be making daisy-chains with the rabbit or something. Or handing out presents to childre-

He already did that. He'd been doing that for  _years_! Pitch let out a strangled little whimpering sound and collapsed to the floor in despair.

Lying face down on the dusty rock, Pitch resolved that he was not going to get up. No, he was going to lie here on the ground until the world came to an end. Maybe then he could salvage what last few scraps of dignity he had left.

"Hey, is it safe to come in, or are you still in 'I am Pitch, destroyer of worlds' mode?"

Pitch fought the urge to scream in frustration. He couldn't even be allowed to  _die_  in peace, could he? "Is being the architect of my destruction not enough for you, Jack? Now you have come to torment me further?" he grumbled into the floor.

"What are you talking about? I didn't even touch you." Pitch felt a gust of cold wind pass over him as Jack landed nearby.

"No, you didn't have to, did you? Very clever. Was this your plan all along, Jack?"

"Uh, Pitch, are you feeling alright?"

"No. I'm not. I'm going insane."

"Well, I'm not about to argue with that, considering the way you're acting right now." Jack paused for a moment, as if anticipating a verbal barb to parry. Pitch didn't oblige. "…Are you going to get up?"

"No."

"You are literally the weirdest person I have ever met, Pitch," Jack sighed.

"Wonderful. Does that inspire you to leave me alone?"

"Nope! I knew you were weird from day one. Come on, Pitch. You can't sulk forever."

"Watch me."

Jack made a vaguely disappointed noise and Pitch could hear him pacing back and forth. Maybe if he just lay there very quietly, the Guardian would get bored and go away.

In retrospect, that was an empty hope if there ever was one.

A cold hand lifted the collar of his shirt and suddenly there was snow shoved down his back. Pitch yelped and recoiled at the sudden chill, scrambling into a sitting position to glare daggers at Jack. "What is  _wrong_  with you?!" he snarled.

"I figured it out! You're miffed because we didn't have the big showdown you set up with so much effort!" Jack crowed, grinning and bouncing from foot to foot. "You could've just said something, you know. I'm happy to oblige."

Pitch gaped at Jack for a moment.  _That_  was what the boy had gathered from all this? Really? By the darkness, he was even more of an idiot than Pitch had originally thought.

A sudden snowball to the face drove even those thoughts out of Pitch's head. That was it. He had enough of this little brat. "I'm going to kill you!" Pitch shrieked, warm, welcome anger replacing all the other odd emotions that had been tormenting him.

Jack laughed. "That's the spirit!" He was abruptly cut off by a Hellhound leaping out of the darkness and driving him to the ground. After a brief scuffle, Jack managed to freeze the beast and bolt away, hotly pursued by Pitch and his hordes of nightmarish creatures.

Through the lair they charged and clashed, fighting tooth and nail to gain the upper hand. They shouted taunts and insults at each other and collected their own sets of bruises and scrapes. Snow and sand was spilled over the floor, shadows and ice wresting as the temperature dropped to a point where both their breaths came condensed and harsh and ragged.

The raw simplicity of the fight seemed to act to clear Pitch's head and calm his nerves. The adrenaline singing through his veins and the hot rush of the struggle soothed him, seemed to confirm that this was right. This was what he was made for, this was where he belonged.

He was just overthinking this. There was no reason why he should care if a Guardian had a misguided sense of trust in him. If anything, it would make his job easier.

And so what if he was fond of Jack? The boy was amusing, when he wasn't being infuriating, and useful. Besides, Pitch liked lots of things, for instance… well…

In any case, he liked plenty of things and that hadn't changed the fact that he was still the boogeyman. There was no reason why enjoying the mayhem he and Jack got up to had to change that either. He was the same as always.

And if Jack wanted to delude himself otherwise, well, that was his business. Clearly nothing Pitch could do would dissuade him from that foolishness.


	47. Injury

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Finals are coming up, so updates are going to be a little sparse for the next couple of weeks, sorry.

Pitch decided that Jack just waltzed into his lair far too nonchalantly. His home was supposed to be a place of dread and terror, yet the Guardian treated it as if it were some kind of public space, not even having the common courtesy to ask before invading someone else's property.

Well, he supposed none of the Guardians were very good at respecting other's living spaces, were they? Tooth's little nuisances and North were particularly known for creeping into people's houses. With such awful role models, it was no surprise that Jack was so rude as to come in without knocking. Well, that and the fact he seemed, on principle, to be opposed to manners in general.

Pitch ignored the fact that he was probably the one who broke into others' homes the most.

In any case, it was high time he did something about this situation.

He tested the tension in the tripwire he had strung across the entrance. Yes, this should work. Jack would blunder into it in his usual rush to make trouble for Pitch, and pull down the buckets.

Pitch wondered if the water would all freeze to Jack when it hit him. Probably. It would likely look ridiculous, too. Pitch smirked.

Maybe after Jack had to spend an hour snapping icicles off of himself, he'd take a little more care.

* * *

A sudden, startled yell alerted Pitch when Jack arrived. However, the noise was followed by a loud  _clunk_  instead of the splashing sound he had anticipated. And then there was silence.

What?

Pitch blinked to the entrance to find Jack lying on the ground with a large chuck of ice on the ground next to his head. He'd frozen the water before it hit him and gotten brained with it, it looked like. Must have thought it was a Nightmare or Hellhound and acted without thinking. Not that he seemed to  _ever_  do much thinking.

…Jack wasn't getting up.

"Jack?" Pitch went to stand next to the fallen spirit. "This isn't funny, you know."

No response.

Pitch frowned. "Jack!" he said more loudly, nudging the Guardian with one foot. Still nothing. He… wasn't faking? Pitch crouched down and held his hand near Jack's mouth. He felt a soft gust of frigid air pass over his fingers. Well, the boy was still breathing, at least. Good. Pitch let out a breath of his own that he hadn't known he was holding.

Now what was he supposed to do?

He couldn't very well dump him on North again, the oaf would never believe this story. Generally spirits were pretty resilient, surely Jack would be fine shortly, right?

Just leaving him here didn't seem quite right, though.

Snow tended to made Jack feel better, didn't it? And ice packs  _were_  used for injuries normally. That was an easy enough solution.

A quick trip through the shadows and Pitch had found an appropriate snowdrift to stuff the Guardian in. He shoveled some snow on top of Jack.

Pitch didn't notice a little blur of green pass by, take note of what was happening, chirp in distress and rapidly flit off.

* * *

The boogeyman had finished covering Jack up until only his face was visible. Pitch paced back and forth nearby, glowering. He'd probably have to apologize when the Guardian woke up. Nevermind that  _he_  wasn't the one who had frozen the water and gotten himself knocked out. But everyone seemed to think it was always his fault when something went wrong. Oh, kids having nightmares? Boogeyman. Someone attacking the Guardians? Boogeyman. Something haunting the old churchyard? Boogeyman.

…Okay, so he was responsible for all those things. But still! This time he actually wasn't to blame!

Ugh, why couldn't Jack wake up and let him get this over with? Waiting around was intolerably dull.

A sudden flash light and a soft jingling noise was barely enough warning to allow him to dive out of the way of a boomerang. "What have you done to Jack, you gallah?!" An anger-filled voice demanded. The Guardians had arrived by way of snow globe.

...He took it back, dull was fine.

Pitch growled and bared his teeth at the four. "I haven't done a thing, now piss off!"

"The mini fairy said that-" Tooth spotted Jack in the drift and darted forwards with a gasp.

"Don't touch him!" Pitch snarled, and a Nightmare charged out of the darkness to knock Tooth aside. More creatures formed out of the shadows around the boogeyman. He stepped between the Guardians and Jack, glaring poisonously at them. "Leave."

"Not a chance, Pitch!" Bunnymund yelled, hurling another boomerang.

Pitch whipped out his scythe and used it to block the other weapon. "Fine, if it's a fight you want…" he hissed, eyes narrowing.

* * *

Jack slowly regained consciousness. The first thing he became aware of was that it was incredibly loud. What sort of rude people were making so much noise when he was trying to sleep? What was going on, were they waging a war outside of his snowdrift?

He grumpily sat up, displacing the snow on top of him and rubbing his eyes. Opening them again allowed him to take in the sight of the Guardians and Pitch and hordes of Nightmares rampaging through the area.

Oh, so they  _were_  waging a war.

Wait, what? Why?

"Uh… Guys?" Jack started, but he must have been drowned out by all the yelling and clashing because no one seemed to pay attention to him. Jack sighed and fished his staff out of the snow. Slamming it against the ground produced enough of a gale that everyone paused. "I'm out of things for a few minutes and you all decide that it's time to try to kill each other?! Really?" he exclaimed.

"Jack, you're okay!" everyone (except Sandy) said in unison. Then the boogeyman and the Guardians went back to glaring at each other.

"Of course I'm okay, why wouldn't I be?"

"Well, we thought-" Tooth started to say.

"You took a blow to the head," Pitch supplied. He met the stares of the Guardians and added, "Which  _wasn't_  my fault. And then they decided to attack me."

"You were the one who attacked us!" Tooth replied angrily.

"I don't care who started it!" Jack snapped. "I'm tired, my head hurts and you are all being dumb about this! Now, you are going to stop fighting and go home."

"But-" North started.

"No buts! Go!"

Pitch was looking positively gleeful to see Jack yelling at the Guardians. He shot a gloating look at them before Jack rounded on him.

"I haven't forgotten how I got into this position, Pitch! Don't do that again! Now go away and think about what you've done!"

The boogeyman seemed to wilt under Jack's glare. He motioned to his creatures and slunk back into the shadows. Before he vanished, he muttered something that might possibly have been something along the lines of 'sorry'.

The Guardians all stood speechless for a moment, gazes flicking between the spot where Pitch had vanished and where Jack was standing with his arms crossed, looking irritated.

"…But you're sure you're all right, Jack?" Tooth finally asked softly.

"Yeah, fine, nothing that a bit more of a nap can't fix." Jack said, seeming to deflate a little and giving the fairy a smile. "But I'd appreciate some quiet. I'll drop by later to visit, so you guys can relax."


	48. Thanksgiving

Jack had long since learned that if he wanted to have any sort of serious conversation with Pitch without the boogeyman scampering off, he had to come at things very carefully, like he was approaching a skittish deer.

It also helped if Pitch was tired, then his guard was down more.

Honestly, this friendship was probably one of the weirdest for all the topics he had to dance around to avoid Pitch going into fits. How did the boogeyman get to be so touchy?

In any case, Jack was getting sick of constantly being the peacemaker between his pals and figured it was high time they came to some sort of agreement.

So one day, after they were both catching their breaths and brushing off snow and sand following one of their frequent playful scuffles, he decided to broach the topic. "…So, there's gonna be a dinner-party-thing at the Pole this Thanksgiving. North thinks we should have more bonding time or something, and that's a holiday none of us have to worry about too much."

"Indeed. Dinner with all the Guardians? That is simply  _fascinating_  news, Jack. Thank you for sharing." Pitch deadpanned, picking ice out of his hair.

"I thought you might want to come, too?"

Pitch paused, then gave Jack an incredulous look. "Why would you  _ever_  think that?"

Jack shrugged. "I dunno. I thought you could maybe talk civilly and get to know each other better. So that I don't have to worry about you being at each other's throats every other day?"

Pitch laughed at that. "You want to stop us from fighting by having us interact  _more_? That seems rather contradictory."

"But you-"

"Still want to see them fall off the face of the earth," Pitch said flatly. "And I imagine they feel the same way about me. Honestly, I can't imagine why they would ever extend an invitation to…" He trailed off, seeming to consider something. "They don't know that you're inviting me, do they?"

"Er, well… No?" Jack replied.

Pitch smiled wryly. "Do you really think it would turn out well if I just turned up there, Jack? They'd all have a  _fit_."

"I'd be able to talk them around, I'm sure."

"As much as I enjoy watching you argue with the rest of those twits, I have no interest in sitting down at the same table as them unless I have the opportunity to lace all their drinks with arsenic first. And I somehow doubt that's what you're suggesting."

"Nothing I can do to convince you?"

"If you've somehow made the mistaken assumption that you can  _ever_  tell me what I should or should not do, allow me to divest you of that illusion. I am the Nightmare  _King_ , not someone you can order around."

"But you listened to me when I woke-"

"We agreed to never speak of that again," Pitch said, eyes narrowing.

"Actually, I'm pretty sure you just showed up a day after that to yell about how you had suddenly remembered having urgent business that had absolutely nothing to do with me telling you off like a misbehaving child, and then you dumped a raspberry-flavoured slushie on me. I don't remember coming to an agreement at all…" Jack trailed off as Pitch started making a hissing noise like air slowly escaping from a balloon. He sighed. "Fine. You can't blame a guy for trying."

"Actually, I most certainly can blame you. Or at least judge you or having such a spectacularly dimwitted idea," Pitch replied, folding his arms and looking disdainfully down his nose at Jack.

" _You're_  the dimwit," Jack grumbled.

"Yes, clearly that is the comeback of the party with superior mental faculties," Pitch said with a smirk.

"Oh, what was that? Did I hear you say 'Please pummel me with snowballs, Jack'?" the Guardian asked, cupping a hand to his ear.

"Hard of hearing as well as pea-brained? My, life must be difficult for you," Pitch cackled, ducking out of the path of a hurled handful of snow.

"Get back here!" Jack yelled, scooping up more ammunition as Pitch hopped on the back of a Nightmare and dashed off.

* * *

In hindsight, it was probably for the best that he couldn't talk Pitch into coming. As much as Jack would like to fantasize that they'd be able to set their differences aside for a little while, it was far more likely that it would just make everything awkward and tense, and he really didn't spend enough quality time with the Guardians as it was.

The get together went really well, all things considered. They'd decided to work together to make the meal. Sandy and North tackled the turkey, and Jack, Bunnymund, and Tooth took care of the side dishes, the decorations, and the desserts. Tooth and Bunny got into their usual argument about chocolate and its dangers to teeth, and Jack may have decided to start a snowball fight to get their minds off of it and accidentally re-frozen the turkey just before North and Sandy got it into the oven. The elves made off with half of the cooking implements and started making a very precarious-looking fort underneath the kitchen table. Sandy ate all of the cranberry sauce before anyone could stop him, and Tooth's mini fairies somehow decided that the mashed potatoes were intended as ammunition for a food fight.

The yetis had to intercede to prevent a complete disaster, and grumpily ejected everyone else from the kitchen.

After they had all stopped laughing uproariously, the Guardians settled down at the dining table to swap stories and catch everyone up on what they had been up to.

"-So then I said, 'That's not a snowball, that's the cat!'" Jack finished as the rest of the group chuckled.

"…So, it's thanksgiving, right? Maybe we should say what we're thankful for. I'll start. I'm thankful for dentists! Oh, and floss! You have no idea how much better the teeth are now that those are commonplace." Tooth gushed happily.

"Yeah, big surprise there, Tooth. I'm thankful for how life always brings new chances and opportunities," Bunnymund replied, raising his glass.

Images of delicious-looking food danced over Sandy's head.

"For the children!" North said energetically, bringing his hand down on the table for emphasis.

"I'm thankful for all of you," Jack said with a warm smile.

"And I'm thankful that North's security measures are still completely laughable," a bored voice drawled. Pitch stepped out of the shadows, surveying the gathering with an unimpressed expression. "Though not  _too_  thankful, since it means that I can be subjected to this kind of saccharine pap."

"Pitch!" The Guardians scrambled for their weapons.

Jack just grinned. "You came."

Pitch gave the frost spirit a razor-thin smile. "That I did," he said, and before the other Guardians could act to stop him, he grabbed Jack by the sleeve and the both of them vanished into the shadows.

Jack opened his eyes back in Pitch's gloomy lair. He looked around in confusion. "Pitch, why did you kidnap me?"

"You invited me to spend time with you on Thanksgiving. I decided that I would take you up on your offer," Pitch replied innocently.

"But I meant that with the other guys too!"

"Oh, but I don't like to share, Jack." Pitch replied, examining his fingernails. "Though I wouldn't worry too much about them. No doubt they'll arrive shortly to try to rescue you from my clutches."

"But- I- You- This is the exact opposite of what I wanted, Pitch!" Jack exclaimed, throwing his hands up in exasperation.

"Oh you poor thing. My black heart bleeds for you, really it does." A cheshire-wide grin spread over his face as a portal opened up nearby. "Right on time."

"Give Jack back!" Tooth yelled as she zipped through the portal. The others were right behind her.

"Never! He's mine now, ahahahaha!" Pitch cackled, grabbing Jack by the back of his hoodie and dragging him off down a twisting corridor.

The Guardians tried to pursue him, but were brought up short by a sudden avalanche of black and purple beach balls raining down on them.

"Pitch, what are you doing?" Jack demanded, just catching a glimpse of the event before he was pulled around a corner and out of sight.

"Do you really think that I wouldn't set up a few booby traps in anticipation of the Guardians' visit?" Pitch asked with a smile.

"Okay,  _why_  are you doing this?"

"Why not? What's the matter Jack, afraid to have a little fun?" the boogeyman released him and stepped back. "Well, you've still got your staff, don't you? If you don't like this, go on and stop me."

Jack glanced at his weapon, then back at Pitch. A slow smile spread over his face, and he raised the back of his hand to his forehead, throwing his head back. "Oh, no! I have been captured by the Nightmare King! Please, someone, anyone, help me!" he called down the hallway, where the sounds of the Guardians cursing and stumbling and scrambling over the balls could be heard.

"Finally, a proper reaction!" Pitch said, bringing his hands together with a clap. "Now, come along, prisoner, I think they're starting to catch up."

The two of them dashed off. And if Jack laid down several patches of slick ice behind them, well, it was only so that the Guardians would know in which direction Pitch had brought him against his will.


	49. Titles

It was early autumn, Jack didn’t have much to do aside from frosting the ground in the morning and making sure the leaves on the trees had changed colours, and he was bored. It was sunset by now and the kids were all starting to head home now too.

He was just pondering whether or not he felt like going to pester Pitch when, conveniently out of the corner of his eye, he spotted movement down a shadowy alleyway.

Sure enough there was Pitch, lurking in the shadows and eyeing a set of houses pensively.

Jack grinned and sauntered over. “Hey there, what brings you to this neck of the woods?”

Pitch’s eyes flicked to the Guardian. “You certainly have a talent for showing up wherever you’re not wanted, don’t you?”

“Oh, definitely. I like to think of it as my own personal superpower, in addition to the ice and stuff. ‘Oh no, I must go, my annoyance senses are tingling!’ ” Jack replied with a cocky grin. “Also, I’m bored.”

“I have a job to do, Frost.” Pitch replied, rolling his eyes. “And it _doesn’t_ involve babysitting you.”

“I’m sure we can do something that’s both fun and helps you fill your scaring quota for the night…” Jack snapped his fingers. “There’s a theme park around here that should still be open for a few hours.”

 “And I should care about that because…?” Pitch asked flatly.

“Well, there’s a bunch of rumors going around that the horror-themed section of it is haunted. And I thought-”

“What better way to pass the time than to make it _actually_ haunted?” Pitch finished.

“Exactly.”

A faint smirk crossed the boogeyman’s mouth. “Well, what are we waiting for?” He quirked his fingers and shadows started to rise up around them. Jack hopped out of their grasp, though. Pitch looked at him questioningly.

“You know, I’m kind of sick of always travelling _your_ way, Pitch.” Jack said.

“Well, what do you suggest, then…” Pitch started to ask, but trailed off when he noticed the ever-widening grin spreading across the Guardian’s face. “Oh no. No. Absolutely not. I refuse.”

“Oh, come on, Pitch,” Jack wheedled. “It’ll be fun. I think I’m more qualified than most to claim that.”

“Jack, do you recall what happened the last time you dragged me off into the sky? Because I would be more than happy to give a repeat performance,” Pitch growled, eyes narrowing.

“Psh, there isn’t enough snow around here to do that again.”

“I can improvise,” he promised darkly.

There was a moment’s tense pause as the two of them stared each other down with the same intensity usually reserved for gunslingers facing each other down at high noon.

Then there was a sudden rush of movement as Jack leapt forwards and Pitch threw up a wave of nightmare sand. By the time the smoke cleared Jack found himself facing down a snorting Nightmare as the boogeyman dashed down an alleyway and around the corner.

“Pitch, come back you coward!” Jack yelled, blasting the Nightmare with ice.

“No!”

“I know where you live!”

“Then I won’t go back there, hah!”

Jack grumbled and shot off after Pitch. He found himself at a small park with no sign of the boogeyman to be found. He sighed and wondered if the guy was just lurking in the shadows nearby or if he had scampered off.

There was a kid still at the park who was gathering up some knickknacks into a backpack and looked to be about ready to head home. Maybe he had seen where Pitch had went. Jack strode over, hoping that he could been seen.

“Hey, kid, I don’t suppose you saw the boogeyman run by, did ya?” Jack asked,

The kid grinned up at the Guardian. Great, he could see him. It was still a bit of a thrill every time that happened. “Jack Frost!”

“Yep, that’s me!” Jack said with a grin. “It’s nice to meet you. It’s a bit late today, and you should be heading home, but how’s about I drop by tomorrow and we can play?”

“Yeah!” the boy beamed, before a quizzical expression passed over his face. “But, uh, who’s the boogeyman?”

“What? You haven’t heard of him? You know, sort of grey guy, tall, dark and scary? He likes to hide under beds and in closets?”

“…What’s so scary about a man who’s named for a dance?”

“A dance?”

“Yeah, the boogie. It’s an old person dance. My parents do it. You’re telling me there’s a man who dances in my closet? That’s weird.” the kid said, his nose wrinkling.

“Um, well, I’m not sure Pitch is much of a dancer-” Jack suddenly stopped, recalling being told about Pitch’s little display on North’s globe. He choked on the wave of laughter caused by revisiting that particular mental image. “Pfft-! Or maybe he is. Haha, the boogie man.” He snickered.

“Alright, mister. You’re a little weird, but I like you.” The kid patted his arm reassuringly. “See you tomorrow, okay?”

“Yeah, will do. Thanks, kid.” Jack managed to say, ruffling the boy’s hair. The kid headed off home, and Jack fell against tree to laugh some more.

Eventually there was a voice from the shadows nearby. “…You’re terrible at hide and seek, Jack.”

“I’m sorry, I can’t! It’s just… you, dancing, hahaha! The boogie man! The name fits so perfectly!”

“There is _nothing_ wrong with dancing! It’s a perfectly legitimate form of expression!” Pitch said with a scowl, folding his arms.

“Yeah, but it’s not exactly what you’d call intimidating…”

“I don’t- Not everything I do has to be- It’s not like- Rrrh!” Pitch snapped incoherently. “I have better things to do than this!” With that last petulant remark, he vanished back into the shadows, leaving Jack to giggle to himself.


	50. Pastime

Pitch had, at first, resented people who looked to fear as a way to be entertained, as some kind of thrill to indulge in. It chafed him, to see people abuse fear in such a way. These people thought that terror was some kind of a game?

There was no fun in scaring someone if they _wanted_ to be scared, he had thought.

Of course, that had been during the Dark Ages, when he was in power and fear as a form of entertainment wasn’t very common; people had enough proper horror in their lives.

And after the Guardians had overthrown him, well, hardly anyone could see or interact with him anyway, so even if he had wanted to indulge the thrill-seekers, he couldn’t.

He hadn’t wanted to, anyway. He’d been far too preoccupied plotting his revenge and rise to power once more.

Of course, that had been a bust too. He wasn’t sure why he was surprised, it seemed like everything in his existence was just an endless parade of plans blowing up in his face.

So when the option was finally brought up once more, he’d been too dispirited to muster up indignation. What could it hurt, right? He was already as low as he’d ever been.

And he found out he had been wrong. Terror _was_ a game. An incredibly enjoyable one, one he was very good at. Finally, something he could win.

Recently, now that his name was widespread once more, he’d found a new favorite pastime.

Finding the people who curled up alone with horror stories, or movies, or online creepypasta, and having a little bit of fun. They liked a good scare, clearly, and he was more than happy to oblige.

Sometimes he would take a more subtle approach. Make a few creaks or footsteps sound from an attic that _should_ be empty. Maybe a faint scratching noise at a window. Make the lights flicker. Did the shadows move out of the corner of their eyes, or was it just their minds playing tricks on them? Could… could they hear something _breathing_ in the closet off to their right?

Other times he would make his presence known a little bit more. If they were in a room with a closed door, he’d rattle the handle. That always got a couple good shrieks. Or he’d wait outside the window, corporeal this time, and wait for them to notice his eyes on them. Letting his shadow fall across the wall that they were facing, but vanishing when they turned around to see what cast it. Maybe he’d make some sounds that couldn’t be explained away as the house settling or a branch scraping on a window. Whispering their name from the other room, or from outside. A choked, gurgling rasp and the sound of _something_ being slowly dragged across the floor.

There were even a few of his unwitting playmates that he felt needed a bit more of a fright. The cynical ones, mainly, the ones that read the tales as if to prove they weren’t afraid, the ones that laughed and pointed out inconsistencies and improbabilities in the stories.

Those ones faded in and out of their belief in the creatures of the night. Usually there was just a little flicker, brought on by a tale that struck a particular chord and sent a chill up their spine before they had time to throw up a shield of logic and reason. Just a moment or two where they thought ‘ _maybe’_ …

He loved happening across those little windows of opportunity.

Typically, he’d curl one of his hands around their throat. Gently, of course, he’d hate to harm one of his believers, even the flighty ones. It was only a game, after all. He didn’t cut off their airway, his hand was mainly just there so that he could _feel_ their breaths catch in their throat and their pulse spike under his palm as he leaned down to hiss a ‘hello’ in their ears.

He never got tired of the screams.


	51. Retrieval

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A continuation of Chapter 48- Thanksgiving.

After an hour of stumbling through what appeared to be a series of increasingly ridiculous traps, the Guardians decided that Pitch clearly had way too much time on his hands. Granted, immortality did tend to lend itself to copious amounts of time to pursue one's interests, but he _was_ the boogeyman. Wasn't he supposed to be haunting the shadowy places under children's beds and whatnot? When on earth did he find time to construct dozens of Rube Goldberg style devices that, among other things, released swarms of cockroaches or launched dozens of water balloons at them?

And the "at least he's not trying to kill anyone" argument only held off frustration and irritation for so long.

For Bunnymund, the last straw was when several barrels of flour were upended over them all, turning the Guardians all white as ghosts. And, of course, since they weren't all fully dry from the water balloon incident, an unpleasant sort of sticky paste was formed and turned out to be incredibly difficult to wipe off, especially out of fur.

"Tell me why we're doing this again?" Bunnymund growled, working a stubborn bit out of his ear.

"Well, we need to get Jack back…" Tooth replied resolutely, though she looked almost as bedraggled as the Easter Guardian.

"What for? It's not like Pitch is gonna hurt the show pony! He would've done that already!" Bunnymund exclaimed, throwing his hands up in the air in exasperation.

"Oh my, you're seriously suggesting that the Guardians abandon one of their own in the clutches of the Nightmare King? Are you sure you're cut out for this job, rabbit?" Pitch drawled, stepping out of the shadows nearby with a grin.

"Pitch!" Bunnymund snarled, hurling a boomerang at the boogeyman.

Pitch cackled and melted back into the darkness. "Foiled by a few simple parlor tricks, tsk, tsk. You really are quite pathetic, you know."

"Last time I checked, you lost to us. What does that say about you, Pitch?" North asked calmly, combing some of the muck out of his beard with his fingers.

A dark hiss rang out through the caverns of the lair, and the boogeyman reappeared on a set of stairs nearby, yellow eyes flashing in the darkness. He bared his teeth in a mockery of a smile. "Clearly it means I'm not trying hard enough." He lifted a small object in both hands and aimed it at the Guardians. "So, say hello to my little friend."

For an instant, a bright, searing flash cut through the gloom of the lair.

There was a moment where the Guardians were unable to do anything but blink the spots out of their eyes. Then, just as their vision started to clear, they heard Pitch chuckle. "Oh, I'm going to have to get this one framed," he said gleefully, looking down at the object in his hands.

"Is- Is that a camera?!" Tooth gasped, eyes widening. "You hand that over right now!" she demanded, lunging at Pitch.

"Oh, don't be so stingy, Toothiana! Not all of us can preserve memories in teeth like you do," Pitch said with a cackle, fading into the shadows an instant before the Tooth Fairy could lay hands on him. "And I just want to preserve this precious moment for posterity!"

"You're evil!" she screeched.

"I thought we'd already established that, my dear. Still want to give up our little competition and leave Jack to me?" Pitch asked, springing out of the shadows at the far end of the cavern, this time with Jack in tow. The frost spirit had a thin cord of nightmare sand wrapped around his wrists.

"Oh, please don't leave me here." Jack deadpanned. "You have no idea what kind of tortures I have been subjected to. I've had to listen to him talk at me for the last hour! It's been absolutely excruciating."

Pitch cast his eyes upwards and sighed. "That's the best you can do? You're the worst hostage ever."

"Hey, you're a pompous windbag. I'm pretty sure that the Geneva Convention forbids this kind of treatment."

"If they knew what an aggravating brat you are, I'm sure they'd encourage anything that would make you suffer," Pitch replied, glaring down at Jack.

"Sure, sure. Oh, and you might want to look out," Jack replied with a smirk.

"Wha-" A whip of dreamsand coiled around Pitch's wrist and yanked him sharply off of the parapet. "I was in the middle of talking, Sanderson! Rude!" Pitch snapped, dangling off of one of his bridges like a freshly-caught fish.

"If we waited for you to stop talking, would never get anything done," North replied in his typical jolly manner.

Tooth ferried Jack back to the group. Sandy gave Pitch a hard shake and the boogeyman, hissing, snapped his fingers and Jack's staff dropped out of the darkness and onto the Guardian's head. "Ow!" Jack muttered. The nightmare sand around his wrists dissolved too, though the wisp had barely looked strong enough to restrain Jack in any real way.

"Are you alright, Jack? Why would Pitch kidnap you today?" Tooth asked.

Jack picked up his staff and rubbed the back of his head embarrassedly. "Er, well, I may have kind of invited him, heh."

"You what?!" Bunnymund exclaimed.

"I didn't ask him to do _this_! I just invited him to spend Thanksgiving with us."

"That's an even worse idea! Why would anyone want _him_ around?"

"I can hear you, you know," a sulky voice echoed from off of the bridge.

"Come on, wasn't this fun and exciting? Even just a little bit?" Jack asked.

The Guardians looked down at their bedraggled states pointedly, then back at Jack.

"We need to have discussion about what is appropriate fun, Jack," North said, tossing a snowglobe down and grabbing Jack by the ear.

"Ow, hey! What? Wait, no!" Jack protested as he was towed off towards the portal. "I don't need another lecture!"

"Pretty sure you do, mate," Bunnymund replied heartlessly.

"No, not that!" Jack cried. "Pitch, Pitch, help me!"

"Can't. A little tied up right now, remember?" Pitch replied, a smug tone in his voice.

"Pitch!" Jack called out once more, desperately, before the whole group stepped through the portal and vanished.

The boogeyman eventually managed to free himself and reclined on the stone steps, grinning. Oh, _that_ was fun. He really did so enjoy causing trouble. And the Guardians had even forgotten to take the camera away from him. He chuckled. Yes, today had been a good day.


	52. Attempt

Jack held up his hands placatingly, flashing one of his most brilliant smiles. “Alright, I know we haven’t exactly been the best of pals or anything, and we’ve had our differences and arguments, sure, but I’m certain we can be reasonable about this!”

The Nightmare stared him down balefully and snorted, stamping a foot against the ground.

“Oh, come on, don’t be like that! Just-“ He leapt forward, and the creature danced out of his way. “-hold-“ He made another failed lunge at the Nightmare. “-still!”

The monstrous horse let out a shrieking whinny and leapt right over Jack’s head. When he whirled around to try to follow it, he wound up smacking face-first into Pitch’s chest. He stumbled back a step, holding his hands up to his bruised nose. “Ow! Jeez, why are you so bony?” he asked with a wince, his voice sounding slightly more nasal than usual.

Pitch stared down at Jack, looking severely unimpressed. “Like you’re one to talk. You’re so scrawny that being tossed around by the _wind_ is your primary method of transportation and you’re making a comment on _my_ figure?”

Jack shrugged. “Hey, I call ‘em like I see ‘em. Or feel them, in this case. I think I have an imprint of your ribcage on my face.” He removed his hands from his nose and looked them over for blood. Okay, good, no nosebleed.

“I can hardly be blamed for your clumsiness,” Pitch replied unsympathetically. The Nightmare peered over his shoulder at Jack, puffing air out of its nostrils. The boogeyman raised a hand to gently stroke the creature’s nose. He gave it a fond smile before turning back to Jack, his friendly demeanor evaporating. “Now, care to explain why you’re harassing one of my dear Nightmares?”

“I’m not doing anything bad, jeez. Why do people always jump to the worst conclusion with me?” Jack asked, shaking his head sadly.

“Hmmm.” Pitch cocked his head to one side, raising his hand to his face to tap one finger against his cheek pensively. “Maybe it’s because you’re nothing but a troublemaker and a royal pain in the neck?” he replied archly.

“Your harsh words are like a knife in my heart, they really are,” Jack said, clutching a hand to his chest. “And now I think it’s my turn to say you’re not really one to talk about being a troublemaker.”

Pitch snorted. “Please, don’t put us in the same league. _I_ am a menace to society. _You_ are simply a nuisance. There’s really quite a large difference, you know.” He shrugged. “Though I suppose I can hardly expect _you_ to grasp the subtleties and nuances of such a complex concept, can I?”

“That’s me! Uncultured swine extraordinaire!”  Jack said with a theatrical bow, looking far too proud to be claiming such a title. “As for what I was up to...” His eyes flicked to the now-calmer Nightmare and a smirk flashed over his face. Quick as a flash, he leapt into the air, somersaulted over Pitch’s head, and landed lightly on the back of the Nightmare. He fastened his arms around its neck and laughed gleefully as the creature whinnied in displeasure and tried to buck him off. “I’ve always wanted to try this!”

Pitch watched speechlessly for a moment while Jack clung to the Nightmare as it reared and kicked and charged around, trying to dislodge the Guardian from its back. “Nothing is sacred to you, is it?” Pitch finally groaned, gesturing exasperatedly.

“Course not!” Jack whooped. “C’mon, girl, you can do better than that!” He said to the Nightmare with a cheeky grin.

In response, the horse stopped where it was, currently halfway up a wall, and its head jerkily turned a full 180 degrees around to glare down at the boy.

“Huh, well, that’s freaky-” Jack started to say, and was interrupted by the Nightmare rudely hocking a gob of sand-saliva all over his chest. “Guh!”

The Nightmare angrily snorted a hot breath into his face and promptly dissolved, causing Jack to flop down to the floor as his ride suddenly disappeared.

Pitch stepped over to stare disparagingly down at the Guardian, crossing his arms. “Now, did we learn anything from that?”

“Yeah. Your horses have _terrible_ manners.” Jack replied, pulling himself up into a sitting position and wiping a hand over the mess on the front of his hoodie. “Bleck. Why is it sticky?”

“The Nightmare fed recently,” Pitch replied with a shrug. “That’s the fear of a mother for her child. It’s a nasty, nagging sort of anxiety that makes people want to cling and hold and never let go.”

“…You are so weird. So, what, do I need bleach or something? Does fear stain?”

“It can stain souls and minds,” Pitch replied with a dark grin.

“Well, I don’t think my shirt has a soul, and you can stop being theatrical, thanks.”

Pitch rolled his eyes. “Natural sunlight should get rid of it. Tell me, why did you ever think it was a good idea to try to ride a Nightmare?”

“Well, you do it all the time, and I thought it might be fun.”

“Ah, so you were being an idiot as usual. How enlightening,” Pitch drawled, turning away and striding off.

“Hey, I got an idea! You teach me how to ride them and I’ll teach you how to skate! What do you say?” Jack called to the retreating boogeyman, leaping to his feet.

Pitch paused and looked over his shoulder at Jack. “Tell me again which one of those things is supposed appeal to me in any way?”

“I think you’d enjoy both of them because it means you get to spend more time with _me_!” Jack replied with a grin, clasping his hands together and fluttering his eyelashes.

“That’s supposed to be the _good_ part of the deal, Jack? Really?” Pitch snorted. “You’re a terrible negotiator.”

“Hey, I am super persuasive!”

“Yes, yes, _of course_ you are. By all means, though, feel free to try to hitch a ride on more Nightmares. I’m certain that this scenario will not continue to repeat itself every time you make an attempt,” Pitch smirked. “Maybe let me know ahead of time, though, so I can procure some popcorn to watch the show, hmm?” 


	53. Laugh

“Hey Pitch, I’ve decided that you need to work on your laugh,” Jack said one day.

“Excuse me?”

“Yeah, your laugh. I mean, you’ve got the maniacal cackling down to a science and your dark creepy chuckles are very well done too. Don’t get me wrong. But I really think every villain needs to have a proper, deep, booming, menacing laugh and I don’t think you’ve got that in your repertoire. At least, I’ve certainly never heard it and I really think that it could add something to your routine as the boogeyman.”

Pitch gave Jack an unimpressed look. “You’ve been having too many movie nights with your squadrons of brats, haven’t you?”

“All I’m saying is that I think you could stand to pick up a few new techniques.”

“I have been doing this for millennia, Jack. I’m pretty sure I know what I’m doing by this point.”

“Well, all the more reason to switch it up a bit, you know. Keep things fresh. Isn’t surprise one of the key elements of fear, after all?”

Pitch sighed. “Jack. You are quite possibly one of the least intimidating things in existence. You’re the Guardian of _fun._ I really don’t understand why you would ever think that you’re able to give me pointers on my job. Or why you would ever _want_ to.”

“Well, you know what they say, ‘Out of the mouths of babes…’”

“In my experience the only thing that comes out of the mouths of children is idiocy.”

“Well there you go. If the kids are able to say silly things then clearly they are not terrified enough by your presence and you need to make some improvements,” Jack said with a proud grin, clearly thinking that he was winning the argument.

“You exist simply to aggravate me, don’t you?” Pitch said exasperatedly, dragging a hand down his face.

“You’re just catching onto that now? Of course I’m just here to make you suffer. That’s what sworn enemies are supposed to do,” Jack said with a grin. “Now come on, how about we try one of those neat escalating laughs? You know, the ‘heh heh heh hah hah MUAHAHAHA!’” Jack threw back head and splayed out his hands as he laughed, a burst of frost exploding behind him to highlight the gesture.

 Pitch smirked. “You’re pretty good at that. Really, you’re _wasted_ as a hero.”

“Oh I know. But, hey, what can you do? Guardianship’s a lifetime gig.” Jack replied with a casual shrug. “Now, your turn.”

“I can’t just laugh on command, Jack. It needs to come naturally.”

Pitch only had an instant to regret what he said when Jack’s eyes lit up, and then there was snow being hurled at him.

The snowballs burst when it struck his chest and he blinked blue pinpricks of light out of his eyes even as he felt a rising, giddy sort of glee wash over him. A smile tugged at his lips and a chuckle worked its way out of his throat. He felt _good._ Like he had just finished terrifying a dozen children.

“That’s the spirit! Now, come on, let’s work on that laugh, huh?”

Pitch grinned. “Oh, I have a _far_ better idea.”

The darkness wrapped around the both of them and Jack abruptly found himself in an unfamiliar and dimly-lit area. “Where are we?”

Pitch’s smile gleamed in the darkness. “A zoo. The insect exhibit, to be precise. And the reptile exhibit is right that way. I’ve always loved this layout, so many things that people get unsettled about in one place.”

Jack uneasily shifted away from the wall of glass enclosures he could now make out as his vision adjusted to the darkness. “…Okay, and why are we here?”

“Because I’ve always wanted to do this!” Pitch cackled gleefully and raised his hands, shadows springing up all around them. A tendril of nightmare sand slipped through each lock and the cages sprang open, one after another. “Be free my pretties!”

“Pitch NO!” Jack shrieked, leaping eight feet in the air to cling to the ceiling as all manner of creepy and crawly things started to emerge and swarm across the floor.

The boogeyman stood happily in the middle of the chaos, completely unbothered by the creatures that were slithering, skittering, or crawling over his feet and robes. He actually looked positively ecstatic, reaching out to stroke and coo happily at them. “Yes, you are positively delightful, my dears…”

Jack tried to contain his panic and failed. This was too much for him. He really, really hated bugs and _they were everywhere_. Out out _out_ , he had to get out. His eyes landed on an air duct and he scrambled into it, the wind pushing him quickly through the enclosed space until he found his way to the exit of the building and burst into the cool night air with a shudder. He rubbed his hands over his arms again and again, the wind swirling around him viciously until he was absolutely certain that he didn’t have any of Pitch’s little friends hitching a ride on him. His skin was still crawling.

He made a mental note to _never_ do that again. The boogeyman’s idea of fun was apparently quite a bit different from everyone else’s.


	54. Aid

Nightmares and fears weren’t the only things that the Guardians had to contend with.

Probably one of their least favorite kinds of things to deal with were the things that were causing trouble at the moment. They went by many names, Daemons, Vices, Qareen, etcetera. Essentially they were amalgamations of the collective negative emotions within the human heart, things that sowed misery and discord wherever they settled.

A well known type was Jealousy, the green-eyed monster. Others inspired rage, hatred, apathy, anxiety, callousness, greed, selfishness, paranoia and distrust, settling onto the back or shoulder of their victims and pouring poison into their souls.

The Guardians _hated_ the creatures because not only did they cause children distress, they tended to actively encourage children to hurt others and themselves. It was utterly terrible to see their charges inflicting pain on one another, and the Guardians tried to intervene in that behavior as much as they could.

For the most part, these creatures were scattered, relatively few in numbers, and could be warded off with generous helpings of hope and wonder and fun, things to lift their spirits and allow them to shake off the negativity.

Occasionally, however, an exceptionally large gathering of them would form, and the outpouring of unhappiness would only keep drawing more and more of the terrible things to the area, and the Guardians would need to step in and battle the daemons directly.

They weren’t doing too well in the battle at the moment; they’d rushed ahead recklessly and wound up being ambushed by an entire horde of the things.

Jack had found himself separated from the rest of the group by a particularly nasty bunch of despair spirits. Keeping them at bay with his frost wasn’t that difficult, but he couldn’t see everywhere and there were a _lot_ of them. As he threw out a wave of ice to repel the creatures, something slammed into him from behind and sent him sprawling to the ground.

He barely had time to roll over and see a greed spirit leaping at him, rows of teeth and claws bared in a feral threat.

He flinched, squeezing his eyes shut and throwing his hands up to protect himself. Those claws were viciously sharp, this was going to _hurt_ -

And suddenly there was a hand gripping his shoulder and he was _falling_.

He landed on a chill, rough stone floor with a grunt. There was a moment of frantic disorientation as his eyes snapped open and he clutched his staff, nervous energy singing through him. He was in the middle of a fight, there was danger and he had to-

Jack finally realized where he was when his eyes fell on the cages hanging all around him, recognized the dark, shadowy gloom all around him. Pitch’s lair. He let out a shaky breath, mildly disturbed to realize that this place was almost comforting to him now. Well, he’d visited often enough over the years that he knew it as well as the Workshop or the Tooth Palace or the Warren by now.  It was practically a second home to him now, and wasn’t _that_ a bizarre thought to have.

“I’m starting to think that you are utterly incapable of staying out of harm’s way, Frost.” The boogeyman was abruptly looming over him, arms crossed and a scowl across his face.

“Well, trouble is my middle name, you know,” Jack replied with a cheeky grin, feeling some of the jitters start to leave him. “Did you just rescue me, Pitch?”

“No, I merely decided that I desperately needed you to come have a _tea party_ with me this very instant. What do you think?” Pitch replied scathingly, rolling his eyes.

“Well, thanks for that!” Jack hopped to his feet and rolled his shoulders. “I think I’m ready to get back into it now though. Send me back.”

Pitch’s eyes narrowed in the typically affronted way they did whenever Jack told him to do _anything_. Then he faltered for an instant, a thought seeming to occur to him. He raised one hand to his chin and tilted his head to the side, a pensive expression crossing his face. “And what if I say no, Jack?”

“What?”

A razor thin smile crept over the boogeyman’s face, his eyes glittering with malice. “I could keep you here, you know. Delay you, make you miss the fight. Who knows _what_ might happen to the others if you’re out of the picture?” His voice was soft and low, almost a purr. He started to stalk slowly towards Jack. “You could wind up being _too late_ to help your friends again, just like the good old days…”

Jack stood his ground, meeting the boogeyman’s gaze steadily. He crossed his arms and raised one eyebrow.

Pitch’s smile faded in the face of Jack’s reaction. There was one long moment where he stared at Jack silently, fingers drumming a restless beat against his own bicep. Faint expressions flickered across his face, there and gone so quickly they were barely noticeable, just a trace of a crease over his brow or a shift of muscles over the jawline as Pitch gritted his teeth.

Finally his lips curled into a snarl, and he snapped his eyes off Jack to stare angrily off at a wall off to his left. “Well, _I’m_ not sending you back. Go there using _your_ method of transportation. You like that better anyway, don’t you? Now get out before I change my mind,” he growled.

Jack sighed. He supposed that was the best he was going to get out of Pitch right now. “Aye, aye, cap’n,” he said lightheartedly, giving a little mock salute with his staff. He floated off the ground and was about to zip off when a thought occurred to him. “You know, we _could_ use some help.”

“Was that a request, Frost? You might want to think better of that. If anything, I should be tossing my lot in with the daemons.”

“Please,” the word was quiet, barely more than a whisper, but the effect it had on the boogeyman was electrifying.

* * *

“This ain’t looking good! We might have to fall back!” Bunnymund shouted, grabbing his last four egg bombs from their holster and kicking out with one powerful leg to send a daemon sprawling.

“Has anyone seen Jack?” Tooth asked somewhat frantically, pausing in her aerial maneuvers to scan the battlefield.

“Not since the last wave!” North exclaimed as he sliced through an enemy and backhanded another one with the hilt of his sabre.

Tooth raised her hands to her mouth in worry. “You don’t think he-”

“My, my. You lot really are in a bit of trouble, aren’t you?” A smug drawl echoed from around them as yellow eyes and a gleaming grin winked into existence in a nearby patch of shadows.

“We don’t have time to deal with you, Pitch!” Bunnymund snapped.

“Oh, but I really think you should make time. You seem to need reminding of who exactly is supposed to be your nemesis, rabbit.” Nightmares rose from the shadows all around them.

The Guardians’ expressions became grim and they readied their weapons. The Nightmares paused, though, and looked back to Pitch. He nodded and cast his hand forwards. The creatures whinnied and charged into battle, crashing into the daemon’s ranks like a tidal wave.

There was a moment of stunned silence from the Guardians.

Pitch’s gaze flickered to them and a faint smirk crossed his face. “Oh, don’t get used to this. You can thank your newest member, he just put himself in one _whopper_ of a debt to me for this.” He paused. “Speaking of which…”

Jack tumbled out of the shadows with a yelp. “You can never make anything easy, can you?” he demanded, clambering to his feet and glowering at Pitch.

“Never,” Pitch replied, his grin widening. His gaze flicked back to the Guardians, who still seemed to be processing this development. “Now, do I have to win the entire battle myself?”


	55. Debt

When the battle had been won and the daemons had been dispersed once more, the Guardians gathered together to check over each other for wounds and congratulate themselves on a job well done. It took mere moments for Pitch to consolidate his Nightmare hordes once more and he darkly strode up to the group, causing the friendly banter to grind to a halt.

"I see that you all made it through the fight unscathed. How unfortunate. I'll be discussing repayment with Jack now," he said in a clipped voice, grabbing the frost spirit by the hood and dragging him off into the shadows.

"Not wasting any time, are we?" Jack asked, back in the lair once more. Travelling through the shadows so much in one day was starting to make him feel a little dizzy.

"I don't see any reason why we should put this off and allow the debt to be forgotten in that snow-filled brain of yours."

"You always do know how to say the most flattering things, don't you?" Jack shrugged and slung his staff over his shoulder. "So, what do you want?"

"Oh Jack, I thought that would be obvious. I want you to stop being a Guardian. That would really make my day," Pitch replied with a lazy grin, idly swirling a thread of nightmare sand around his fingers.

"Yeah, that isn't gonna happen," Jack retorted, crossing his arms.

Pitch sighed and shrugged. "Well, I can always hope that one day you might actually see reason. Can I ask you to set aside the mantle for just one evening, then?"

"What are you planning on doing, Pitch?"

"Oh, it's not what I'll be doing. It's what  _you_  will be doing." Pitch replied, his smile wide and sharp. "I'm a little tired of being the only bad guy on Halloween."

"You want me to scare the kids with you?"

"That's the plan. You're already kind of undead, I'm sure that with a little bit of effort you could end up looking like a right horror. Besides, I'm curious about what it would be like for us to both be on the same team for once."

"I-"  _I thought we already were._ Jack swallowed that statement before it could pass his lips. That was one of those things that would put Pitch on the defensive, Jack knew. And he didn't particularly feel like sitting through another one of the boogeyman's rants. "I don't know, Pitch…"

"I didn't know you were so ungrateful, Jack. I assisted my sworn enemies in battle because  _you_  asked me to, and you hesitate to even do something as harmless as scaring children who  _want_  to be scared?" Pitch spat, eyes narrowing.

Jack felt a twinge of something akin to guilt. "Um…"

Pitch closed his eyes and turned away. "Go back to your friends then, Jack. Apparently I ask too much. …I'm sure I could have wrangled one of my Nightmares into giving you a ride for the occasion, too. Unfortunate," he sighed and started to stride off.

"Whoa, hey, what?" Jack leapt forward and grabbed Pitch's sleeve. "Hold up a second there, did you say riding Nightmar-" He paused when he saw the grin flash over Pitch's face. "You're doing this to manipulate me!"

"Well, it's working, isn't it?"

"…One night, Pitch. Just this Halloween, you hear?"

"Of course."

* * *

The Guardians had been concerned about what sort of debt the boogeyman was calling in when Jack returned.

Jack just waved them off. "It's nothing to worry about." He thought that they might be less than enthusiastic if he told them he'd be spending an evening terrifying kids, and he  _did_  owe Pitch.

* * *

"Stop struggling!"

"But it feels weird, Pitch! Do we have to do this?"

"Yes, now shut up. You owe me one, remember?" Pitch snapped. He reached forward to apply more stage makeup to Jack's face and somehow managed to jab the Guardian in the eye with the applicator brush.

"Ow! You did that on purpose!" Jack exclaimed, jerking backwards and rubbing the heel of his hand against his sore eye.

"If you weren't squirming, maybe it wouldn't have happened!"

"Can't you, like, do some kind of appearance spell with your shadows? Why do we need this goop?"

"I can disguise myself, but I've never tried it with someone else and I'm pretty sure I wouldn't be able to maintain the illusion if you were out of sight. This will do a better job, and I'm extremely familiar with the techniques and tricks that are used for horror movies and whatnot. They're simply fascinating."

"I'm your guinea pig for experimenting with this stuff, aren't I?"

"Maybe. And stop whining. We haven't even gotten to the part with the prosthetics and the contact lenses yet."

"WHAT?!"

* * *

This Halloween, the Pitch Black Escape was being held in a dark and lonely forest, something the Guardians found out thanks to one of Tooth's mini-fairies stumbling across it. The group had decided that Jack being evasive about the debt meant that something was up and that they had better investigate quickly, just to make sure everything was alright.

They arrived at the edge of the woods and quickly proceeded towards the nearest sound of screaming. Soon enough, they had found something.

A small group of harried looking teens scrambled through the brush twenty feet ahead of the Guardians, dragging each other along and casting worried glances over their shoulders.

"You can run, but you can't hide!" a familiar voice rang out through the trees and a slim figure mounted on a Nightmare came swerving around the trees, laughing maniacally.

He was brandishing what looked like Jack's staff, though a vicious-looking blade had been placed over the crook. His skin was somehow even paler, with a sickly greenish pallor. There were sections of his flesh that looked like they were starting to rot away and his hair was mussed and matted with something that might have been dirt or dried blood. His clothes were black as night and tattered and stained.

He looked like a walking corpse.

"Jack?" North said in a disbelieving whisper.

The  _thing_  that resembled Jack paused at the sound of North's voice and turned around, fixing them with unsettling , gleaming yellow eyes. It grinned, showing off a row of jagged teeth that glimmered like shards of broken glass.

At that sight Tooth shrieked and almost fainted. Sandy quickly floated over to support her.

"Jack, what did Pitch do to you?" Bunnymund asked in horror.

"It's pretty impressive, isn't it? Almost worth the pain of it all." Jack tugged on the Nightmare's reigns and it cantered up to the Guardians. He leaned across its neck, gazing down at the Guardians with the same creepy smile and idly tapping his staff against his ankle. "So what brings you here?"

"You didn't say what Pitch wanted you to do and we… Strewth, Jack, why didn't you tell us?" Bunnymund's ears drooped.

"Your beautiful teeth…" Tooth choked out, sounding near tears. Sandy patted her back reassuringly.

"We will find way to fix this, Jack." North said resolutely.

"What?" Jack's smile faded and a faint expression of confusion flitted over his gaunt face. Then his eyes widened in comprehension. "Ohhh. You guys think that I- that Pitch… Ahahahahaha!"

"Fight it, Jack!"

Jack paused in his laughing enough to gasp out, "There's nothing to fight, Bunny." He reached into his mouth and wriggled out one of the needle-sharp teeth, revealing the normal incisor below it. "It's all fake, see? Just a costume. No need to worry."

Tooth immediately flitted over to pry Jack's mouth open and peer worriedly into it. "Oh, thank goodness, they're alright."

"Ngah." Jack made a noise of protest and Tooth released him. "Just helping out Pitch a bit with his Halloween scaring is all, guys. Sorry to worry you."


	56. Novelty

There was _something_ in the woods with them. Something hunting them. Something that made the temperature drop to near-freezing when it came near, something that _laughed_ as it lunged out of the darkness and dragged them away, one by one. Over half the group was gone now, and no one knew which one of them might be next. Every time their breaths misted in the air a thrill of terror shot down their spines.

The group was just passing through a cluster of evergreen trees when the sudden chill swept over them, frost rimming green needles with silver filigree. A soft chuckle reached their ears, carried on the breeze that curled around them, plucking at their clothes. The teenagers huddled together, back-to-back, clutching sticks and other makeshift weapons, hearts pounding as they tried to spot the threat that had come for them once again.

Soft, fluffy white flakes of snow drifted down to land on Erin, melting and running down the back of her shirt. She looked up to see a pair of glittering yellow eyes peering down at her from the branches above them, and the gleam of light along a blade that shone like starlight striking ice.

Razor-sharp teeth flashed in a predatory grin. “Hi there,” it said.

“It’s in the trees!” she screamed, and the group made a break for it as the thing swung off the branch and landed on the back of a horse as black as night, with glowing eyes. The teens scattered into the trees, all semblance of order lost at the appearance of the chilling creature.

Despite her best efforts, it seemed like the thing had decided on Erin and she only managed to sprint past a dozen trees and vault over one fallen log before there was ice crackling along the branches she passed. The monstrous horse pulled up alongside her. Its gaunt rider was grinning nearly from ear to ear, and the staff swung down in a glittering arc. Erin screamed.

The blade passed through her like it was made of mist, but the crook of the staff caught her around the waist and she abruptly found herself being yanked up onto the horse.

“Gotcha!” a gleeful voice rang out behind her and a chill ran through her as hands as cold as death wrapped around her shoulders. She felt the horse’s muscles bunch beneath her as the creature sprang forward into a gallop, carrying them both away.

“NO! Let me go! Put me down!” she screeched, thrashing.

“Are you suuure about that, kid?” her captor asked, and leaned them both to one side of the monstrous horse so that she could look down and see the ground far, far below them. “I mean, I could if you really wanted me to but I’m not sure if you would like it that much…”

Erin squeaked and jerked backwards, away from the dizzying drop. “Where- Where are you taking me?”

The thing chuckled. “Where all the naughty children get dragged off to…”

Before she could say anything the horse suddenly plunged into a terrifying, breakneck dive. If she screamed the wind whipping past them tore the sounds away before they could reach her ears. Erin threw up her hands in an attempt to protect herself, squeezing her eyes shut and hunching her shoulders in anticipation of the moment when they would collide with the ground.

Instead, the sensation of falling smoothly stopped and she could hear dirt crunching under the horse’s hooves once more. Was she still alive? It seemed like she was, though she did have a bit of difficulty remember how to breathe again after that.

“I got another one, Pitch!” the thing behind her called out. It didn’t seem to be talking to her.

“Just one? You’d better pick up the pace, Frost. At this rate you won’t be able to compete with me at all,” another voice replied, low and dark and disdainful.

“Hey, gimme a break! This is my first time! I think I’m doing pretty well!” Erin heard the thing dismount, leaving her alone on the horse, and a cold hand tugged gently at her own. “Right, kid? I was scary, wasn’t I?”

Erin cracked one eye open tentatively. She was in a clearing that was dimly lit by jack-o-lanterns and lamps that let off a soft yellow light. There were other kids all around, and she recognized several of the kids that had been a part of their group earlier, the ones that had been taken before she was. They smiled and waved.

The kidnapper himself was standing next to her, looking expectant.

 “…yeah?” she said hesitantly.

“Yes! Go me!” he pumped a fist in the air excitedly, then gave a grin that seemed a little sheepish. “Er, I mean, sorry about that. Here, let’s get you down.”

Cold hands helped her swing down off of the huge horse, which snorted and cantered away once she was on the ground.

“It was a good try, though. Better luck next year, hey?”

“But… I…”

“Heh. Can’t always judge on appearances, you know,” the boy, who she could now see was a boy and not a monster like she had first thought, said with a wink. “Enjoy the party. I’m gonna go see if I can’t get more of your friends over here.” And with a whoop he had zipped off into the trees again.

* * *

It was getting pretty late by now and the woods had almost been cleared out of kids at this point.

Jack was heading back through the forest when he heard a muffled whimper off to his right. A kid, probably. All alone? Maybe he got lost.

Jack veered off in the direction of the sound and spotted a glimpse of a sneaker peeking out from between the gnarled roots of a huge tree. Striding closer to the spot let him make out the huddled shape of a kid, curled up in the hollow between the roots, with his eyes squeezed shut and his hands clapped over his mouth.

One of the younger kids in the Escape this year, it looked like. Where had his friends gotten to? Jack crouched down to better see the kid. “Found you,” he said with a smile.

The kid flinched, took one look at the pale, gangly, creepy thing staring at him through the darkness, and burst into terrified tears.

“Ah! No! Nononono!” Jack stammered in panic. “No, don’t cry! It’s alright!” He reached out to try to comfort the kid but the boy only shrank back and started to wail louder.

Jack looked around desperately. He’d never made a kid cry before, and it felt _terrible_. What was he even supposed to do at this point? He was too spooky looking to calm the kid down right now, and trying to pick the kid up or anything would only make it worse, probably. “Pitch!” he called out.

The boogeyman appeared next to him, peering at the kid over Jack’s shoulder. “Oh my, you’re better at this than I thought. Well done.”

Jack made a strangled noise of frustration and stress. “That is not something I want to hear right now! How am I supposed to fix this?”

Pitch grinned. “Are you really asking _me_ for advice on how to comfort a terrified child?”

“ _Pitch,”_ Jack growled.

“Oh, fine,” Pitch replied, rolling his eyes. “I’ll go fetch Katherine, then.”

The boogeyman vanished again and Jack was left for one long moment, watching over the hysterical child and gnawing worriedly on his bottom lip. (The fake teeth were, fortunately, not as sharp as they looked.) Then a wad of leaves suddenly smacked into the side of his head and sprayed earthy detritus everywhere, making him cough and sputter and twist around to see who chucked the stuff at him. A woman dressed in camo gear and carrying a flashlight came striding through the woods.

“Begone, foul creature!” she yelled. “You won’t be eating any kids on my watch!”

Jack grinned in relief and hopped away, the wind picking him up and letting him land lightly in the boughs of a nearby tree to watch.

“There now, it’s gone,” Kathy said, bending down to extend a hand to the kid. The boy threw himself forward and clung to her tightly, shaking. “Let’s get out of here.”

Jack watched them both head off into the woods, letting out a relieved, shuddering breath.

“It’s really quite depressing, you know. To see you have so much talent, but no spirit for scaring at all,” Pitch said, suddenly leaning against the trunk of the tree with crossed arms, sounding wistful. “You could be so much more.”

“Yeah, but then I wouldn’t be _me_ , would I?” Jack replied, rolling off of the branch and landing lightly on the ground.

“…I suppose not,” Pitch admitted.

“Besides, I’m pretty sure that most of my ‘talent’ is thanks to your efforts with this get-up,” Jack gestured at his costume.

Pitch lifted his head proudly and Jack swore he could actually see the boogeyman’s ego grow in size. “It really is a masterpiece, isn’t it?”

“Well, it’s really something. Mostly it’s just itchy, though. Can’t wait for the morning when I can finally get it off.”

“But you’ll be destroying _art_ , Jack.”

“Too bad,” Jack replied with a shrug. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh right, some folks mentioned that they wanted to see Jack's get-up from the last chapter. Unfortunately, I have no artistic talent so I can't help you there, but there is other fanart for A Home For Fear:
> 
> Kvalificatsia did a beautiful interpretation of the first chapter: <http://kvalificatsia.deviantart.com/art/A-Home-for-Fear-352281504>
> 
> She also drew Jack meeting Sara for the first time, it's very entertaining. <http://kvalificatsia.deviantart.com/art/Sara-354901524>
> 
> More fanart, this time by the lovely Dariahn: <http://dariahn.deviantart.com/art/Best-team-ever-368150523>
> 
> Doemaarwiebel drew the tickle scene from Chapter 6: <http://doemaarwiebele.deviantart.com/art/RotG-A-Home-for-Fear-fanart-371202307>


	57. Skating

"Alright, Pitch, the weather's gotten cold enough now! Are you ready?" Jack asked.

Pitch frowned and gave the grinning boy a questioning look. "Ready for what, exactly?"

"For your skating lessons!"

"...Excuse me? What gave you the impression that I would ever be _remotely_  interested in that sort of thing?"

"Well, you taught me to ride Nightmares, right? And I did say that I'd teach to skate in return. So really, I'm just holding up my end of the bargain..." Jack replied with a innocent smile.

Pitch's eyes narrowed. "I did not _teach_  you to ride the Nightmares. I talked one into giving you a ride for one night. That's all."

"Hey, that's close enough for me! Now come on, do I have to drag you to the pond myself?"

"That is not going to happen, Jack."

"Oh, don't be such a wet blanket," Jack cajoled.

"I said no!" Pitch hissed and dropped away into a patch of shadow.

Jack sighed and shook his head. "You can't hide forever, Pitch."

* * *

As much as Pitch hated to admit it, Jack was right. He couldn't just avoid this idiocy forever.

Jack could be ridiculously stubborn when it came to these sorts of things and Pitch didn't particularly feel like trying to avoid him for the rest of eternity. Sooner or later the infuriating boy would manage to drag him out onto some forsaken lake and try to get him to participate in the sort of antics that the frost spirit was famous for. And, of course, it would be humiliating.

Unless Pitch did something about that beforehand.

So he'd decided he'd learn on his own. It couldn't possibly be that hard, but he could get any falling and flailing out of the way when no one was around to see him.

And when Jack finally managed to get him to try skating, he could bowl over the boy with his 'natural talent'.

Yes, that was a good plan. Already he was enjoying mental images of Jack being shocked and him being able to scoff at the Guardian for thinking that the Nightmare King could be anything but graceful.

In the dead of the night, Pitch slipped out of his lair and found an isolated, frozen-over pond. Nightmare sand formed blades beneath his feet and he took a few wobbling steps (it was harder to balance on the things that he had thought it would be) down the slope and onto the ice.

"Agh!" Immediately his feet went out from under him and he landed hard on his tailbone on the pond's surface.

A snarl ripped out of his throat and he glared balefully at the ice. He was the Nightmare King, the boogeyman, the fear that lurked in the hearts of men! He had held sway over the whole world once, and he would do so again! A patch of frozen water would not get the best of him! He levered himself to his feet.

Four more attempts and several aching body parts later, Pitch had finally swallowed his pride enough to summon a Hellhound to his side. The beast grew long, sharp claws and latched them securely into the ice's surface, letting it be a secure bulwark that Pitch could cling to as he took a few hesitant, clumsy steps forward.

"Whatcha doing there, Pitch?" A bright voice asked from behind him.

The boogeyman gasped and whirled around and lost his balance. He managed to lunge out and grab a hold of shaggy, sandy fur just as his feet slid off in the opposite direction. He found himself at a 45 degree angle to the ground, his death grip on his Hellhound the only thing keeping him from falling facefirst onto the ice.

A barely-muffled snicker made him snap his head around to glare at Jack Frost, who was practically doubled over with mirth. "Nothing! Not a thing! Sod off!" he snarled.

"Not a chance, Pitch! This is the best thing I've seen all week!" Jack gasped out, his voice strangled with laughter.

"I despise you," Pitch grumbled darkly as he tried to lever himself back up into a standing position. There was a patch of shadows cast by some trees only a few yards away. If he could get to those he could phase away and try to pretend that this night never happened.

Not that Jack would ever let him forget it.

A chill breeze gusted over him and cold hands hooked under his arms, lifting him a few inches off the ground. He was set back on his feet and Jack landed lightly on the ice a few feet away, still wearing a grin that made Pitch want to shove him down a pit and leave him there for a century or two.

"I was doing perfectly fine," Pitch hissed, glowering at the Guardian.

"Yeah, I can see that. It's not like walking, you know. You gotta push off with the sides of your feet, like this." He glided in a easy circle around Pitch as the boogeyman crossed his arms and ground his teeth. He came to a halt in front of him again. "Hey, come on, you wanna throttle me right now, don't you? You're never gonna accomplish that if you just stand there..."

Pitch lunged forward with a snarl. Jack slid easily out of the way and hooked his staff around the boogeyman's middle before Pitch could fall over again, hauling him back into a standing position. He snatched the staff back just as the boogeyman made a swipe for it.

"Gotta do better than that, now."

"I am going to  _skin you alive_!" Pitch shrieked.

"You're going to have to catch me first!" Jack replied with a laugh.

The next while was a series of Pitch growling and scrambling over the ice, trying to get a hold of the winter spirit that danced just out of his grasp each time.

"Oh, so close!"

"Too slow!"

"I think you almost touched my hoodie that time!"

The boogeyman really did seem to be improving on the skates, though, and each time Jack's evasive maneuvers seemed just a little less effortless.

Finally, with a little help from some shadows that grabbed the Guardian by his ankles, Pitch managed to seize Jack and hurl him facefirst into a snowdrift. "Hah!" he crowed triumphantly, breathing hard. "And now you're-" A ray of sunlight suddenly shone on him, making him hiss and recoil back into a patch of shadow. It was dawn already?

Jack extricated himself from the snow and sat up with a grin. "Aw, what's the matter, Pitch? Got a problem with a little sun?"

Pitch's eyes narrowed, partially in ire and partially against the glare of the light on the ice all around him. "Thank your lucky stars, boy. You've been spared  _for now_ ," he growled.

"Oh believe me, I'm shaking in my boots," Jack replied, smirking, and Pitch faded back into the darkness, fleeing the daylight.


	58. Search

Pitch was in the middle of crafting a doozy of a nightmare for one unlucky child when he felt a sudden flare of the ice-cold fear he'd grown so attuned to. It faded almost as soon as it had come, though. What had that been? Was Jack in trouble again?

Well, the Guardian seemed to be constantly in trouble, so it wasn't like that was anything new. Besides, he couldn't sense any fear from the boy any more. He'd probably just been startled by something.

And in any case, he was still cross with Jack for the skating incident, still mulling over exactly how to get back at the Guardian for that fiasco. Why should he care if the little brat had finally gotten what was coming to him? He wasn't under any obligation to try to stop Jack from getting his scrawny little neck broken.

…Though he would be put out if anyone managed to throttle the Guardian before he did. And he was a bit curious as to what had happened, Jack typically didn't startle that easily.

Pitch decided that he would finish spinning this nightmare before he went to investigate.

Half an hour later Pitch drew himself up out of the spindly shadow of a birch tree somewhere in Ireland and scanned the area. No sign of Jack, or anyone else. There was some ice splashed up against a nearby outcropping of stones and there were scuffmarks and indentations in the surrounding terrain. Signs of a struggle?

Well, there wasn't any blood, so he doubted it was serious. He'd ask Jack what happened the next time he saw him. Pitch gave out a command to his patrolling Nightmares to inform him when they came across the Guardian.

After half a day had passed with no sign of Jack reported, though, Pitch started to feel a twinge of unease.

No, no, everything was fine. Jack was probably just on the side of the world where it was still daytime.

Well, shadows were cast almost everywhere, so that would hardly stop Pitch. And so the boogeyman merged with the shadows and spread his awareness, peering out through the darkness of the world. First the colder places of the world, areas where he could sense the thrills of fear caused by a sled going too fast down a slope, the sudden jerk when someone's feet slid out from under them.

Nothing.

Siberia, nothing.

Greenland, nothing.

The Arctic Circle, nothing.

Nothing, nothing, nothing!

This was ridiculous! It had never been so hard to find Jack! It was almost as if he was hidden from Pitch...

Actually, that would explain this. Someone was trying to keep Jack from him. Well, he would just have to find them and  _dissuade_  them from attempting that particular folly.

And there were only a few beings that had both the ability and motivation to conceal someone from him.

It narrowed down the field of suspects considerably.

* * *

The Workshop was having as peaceful a day as could be expected, considering it was home to hundreds of elves and there never seemed to be an end to the messes they got into.

However, this atmosphere of happy chaos was shattered when the front doors of the Workshop were violently thrown open and Pitch came striding in with legions of Nightmares and Hellhounds roiling and snarling all around him. In that moment he looked every inch the Nightmare King, dark and feral and dangerous.

"WHERE IS HE?" Pitch demanded in a voice that seemed to echo with the screams of a thousand different voices, that resonated like the howling of wolves in the dead of night. He leveled his scythe at the Guardian of Wonder, eyes aflame with hatred as his voice dropped to a low, dark snarl."You will tell me, now, or I will bring this place down around your ears!"

North immediately drew his sabers and the Yetis scrambled to grab whatever weapons were at hand. "Who, Pitch?" he asked grimly.

"You know! Jack Frost. I cannot find him and that means you lot are hiding him from me.  _You have no right,_ " Pitch hissed.

"Jack is missing?" North said, eyes widening and brow furrowing.

Pitch seemed to falter slightly at this. His eyes narrowed."You don't have him?"

North shook his head."Nyet. I have not talked to Jack since last week."

Well. that was unexpected. He'd been almost certain he'd be faced with righteous fury, warnings to stay away from poor innocent Jack, something like that.

And the Guardians weren't good at being deceptive. They'd never had to be. Really, they couldn't tell a lie to save their lives. He'd personally had plenty of experience with lies, and North didn't seem to be attempting one. There was no hint of fear in the air about being found out. But if North was telling the truth…

Pitch took a moment to glance calculatingly around the Workshop. He had already mustered a fighting force now. It would be a shame to just waste it. He was sure he could cause enough of a fight to seriously hamper, maybe even stop the production of toys altogether. Jack wasn't here to get in his way with his stupid Guardian obligations. And with Christmas only a month away, it could end up being a crippling blow for the doddering old fool…

But Jack was still missing. And destroying the Workshop, cathartic though it would be, wouldn't help find him. Pitch had to prioritize.

He bared his teeth at the Cossack. "Useless," he growled, before turning on his heel and taking his leave, his hordes streaming out the door alongside him.

* * *

Another search, this time even more exhaustive,  _still_  didn't produce any results. He'd looked high and low, from the Himalayas to the Serengeti and there was not hide nor hair to be seen of the frost spirit. He'd even crept through the Guardians' home bases and there wasn't a sign of Jack to be found.

By now he was trying to fight down a rising panic that had his Nightmares eying him hungrily.

Jack couldn't be gone. He couldn't. He... he had plenty of believers! He should be fine!

The Sandman had plenty of believers too, and Pitch had still managed to...

No! No, that hadn't happened, not to Jack. It couldn't have. He wouldn't allow it.

Pitch snarled and backhanded a Nightmare that came too close. "Get out!" he roared, and the Nightmare turned tail and ran. Pitch let out a shuddering breath and ran a shaky hand through his hair.

As much as he hated to admit it, he needed help. Shadows weren't found everywhere, and Jack might be in a place he wasn't able to reach. He needed someone who didn't face the same limitations as him, preferably someone with a large workforce to make searching quicker...

Oh no.

No.

He would not stoop to that.

He refused.

…Damn it all.

* * *

Pitch stepped onto one of the many platforms of the Tooth Palace, dodging several mini-fairies that nearly flew into him. Gads, the little pests were everywhere.

"Toothiana. You are going to assist me," Pitch stated, crossing his arms.

"Excuse me?" Tooth said, raising an eyebrow.

Pitch buffed his nails on his sleeve nonchalantly, humming. "Well, that is, if you ever want to see Jack again, you will."

"What did you do, Pitch?"

"Nothing at all. But he's missing. I've been looking for him. He's nowhere to be found in the dark, but since you're all  _sunshine and rainbows_ ," -Pitch said those last words in a tone normal reserved for expletives of the foulest type- "You and your little tag-alongs should be able to look through places where the shadows don't touch."

"...All right. I'll get some volunteers together. But I'm doing this for Jack."

Pitch rolled his eyes. "You could be doing this for the Queen of England for all I care."

* * *

Pitch had lurked at the Tooth Palace in the hours since then, despite the Guardian's protests. He currently was holed up in a shadowy corner, watching with hungry, glowing eyes as Tooth sent out her fairies and listened to the reports from the returning ones. It made their feathers puff out in unease, and judging from the scowl on the boogeyman's face he was enjoying this set-up no more than they were.

It got worse when an excited mini-fairy returned, peeping triumphantly. Tooth gasped in delight. "You found him?" The fairy nodded and started into a series of squeaks and chirps.

Almost immediately, Pitch blinked into existence directly in front of Tooth and grabbed her by the shoulders. "WHERE?" he demanded.

"Ireland! Let go-"

Pitch fell back into the shadows, dragging the fairy along with him. Once they were on a shadowy hillside, Pitch let go. "Take me to him."

Tooth wiped off her shoulders distastefully. "You're being-"

" _Now_." Pitch snarled.

The Guardian of Memories threw up her hands exasperatedly. "If it will get you out of my feathers…" She glanced around once to get her bearings, then flew off. A short while later she stopped at a circle of stones. "Lugh, it's Tooth!" she called out, and the ground within the circle caved in, letting beams of bright yellow light spill out.

Through the light Pitch could just make out the figure of a large, athletic-looking warrior passing by the opening, smiling brightly. He had a long spear strapped to his back and was carrying something. "Tooth! You made it just in time for-"

Pitch realized what the object in Lugh's hands was. Jack staff. Jack's staff in  _pieces._  An inhuman sound of rage ripped out of his throat and he snatched his scythe out of thin air, striding forward into the light, heedless of how it made his skin itch and burn.

Tooth flew in Pitch's path, holding up her hands. "Wait! Stop! He's not-"

Pitch growled wordlessly and drew back his scythe to swat the meddlesome fairy out of the air. He'd get his hands on this spirit who  _dared_ to hurt Jack and tear him limb from limb and if the fairy got in his way she'd suffer the same fa-

"Pitch!"

The boogeyman froze at the voice and snapped his head to one side to see Jack, with a black eye but otherwise whole, leaning against a doorway and glaring at him.

His eyes flicked to Tooth for an instant and he tried to hide his scythe behind his back. "Oh, there you are. What happened?"

"Oh, a bunch of daemons got the jump on me. One of them broke my staff and I, uh, must've passed out. Lugh chased them off, but I just woke up now. Lugh was getting me it so that I could fix it up and be on my way," Jack said, giving Pitch a pointed look.

Pitch let the weapon dissolve and awkwardly coughed into his fist.

"I owe Sandy one. When I saw one of his teammates in trouble in my territory, I had to lend a hand," the warrior added, slowly lowering his hand from where it had been gripping his spear. He walked over and handed the pieces to Jack. "Though I unaware you kept such… unsavory company."

"Aw, he's not so bad. Mostly." Jack replied with a shrug. He held the two pieces of the staff together and closed his eyes. A flash of blue light and a wave of cold swept through the room, and Jack twirled his newly-mended staff around his fingers. "Good as new!"

Pitch glowered at Lugh. Now that he knew Jack was alright, the rage was fading away and he was becoming aware of just how bloody uncomfortable it was to be standing in such a bright place. "The feeling is mutual, I assure you. With any luck, we will never meet again." He turned around and walked out of the domain, since there were no shadows for him to fade into.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Author's Note- Lugh is an Irish deity/High King associated with light


	59. History

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oops, wrote a sad chapter. Sorry about that! There's also some references to way back in Chapter 26 (Loss) in here, if you're wondering what they're talking about.

There was one day a year that Jack never came to the lair to visit, never tracked down the boogeyman on his nightly haunts to trade taunts and conversation. It had taken Pitch a while to notice, since they hardly interacted on a daily basis normally anyway. Even now he wasn’t sure it meant anything. Maybe it was just a coincidence. It was during winter, after all, and Jack Frost had his hands full with his duties at that time.

But all the same, Pitch was curious.

And so he’d tracked Jack down just as the Guardian touched down in an old churchyard and strode purposefully through the rows of headstones. Odd place for Jack to be really, though Pitch was right at home in this sort of place as he slipped through the shadows, watching.

The Guardian stopped in one isolated corner of the churchyard and grinned, slinging his staff over one shoulder. “Hey kiddo. That time of the year again, old Jack Frost’s come to visit. Sick of me yet?”

Was there a child in this place? No, there wasn’t any reply as Jack continued to talk, facing a small, worndown gravestone. Oh.

“Been up to some neat stuff lately! There’s this little town in Canada, they throw the best winter festivals I’ve seen in a long time! With a little help from yours truly, of course…” Jack launched into what seemed to be a play-by-play recap of everything he’d been up to as of late, settling down next to the stone and wrapping one arm familiarly around it.

“…And you wouldn’t _believe_ the looks on their faces! Man, it was great!” Jack finished at length, laughing. “Oh, and Pitch? I know lurking in the shadows is kinda your thing but you can come out any time, you know. Come say hi!”

Pitch smiled wryly and stepped forward, shadows sliding off of him like water. “Spotted me, did you? I suppose I have to brush up on my stalking skills.”

“It’s that creepy atmosphere you’ve got. Makes the hair on the back of my neck stand up, kind of a dead giveaway there.”

“Ah.” Pitch shrugged. “So this is your sister, I presume?”

“Yep, the one and only. This is the anniversary, you know. The last time-” Jack’s smile faltered, for just an instant. “The day I saved her, I mean.”

“And you did well. She _lived_ because of you, Jack.” Pitch’s gaze flickered to the writing on the grave. “For good long time, it looks like.”

“I know. And I don’t regret what I did. Not ever. And it’s not like I didn’t see her… afterwards. I didn’t remember her, but we played together, as much as we could have when I was invisible. I just… I wish I could have talked with her one more time. Just once,” he said wistfully. Jack splayed his hand on the gravestone and delicate, intricate patterns of frost bloomed and raced over the granite. “But you know? For those three hundred years, I could listen to people even when they couldn’t see me. I was still there, even if they didn’t know it. And I think that she can do the same sort of thing now. Maybe like how I watched over her, when she was a kid, she watches over me now. So I always try to find time to catch her up on how things have been going.”

“What was it that you told me, some years back? Just because they’re gone, it doesn’t mean they’ve left?” Pitch asked.

Jack let out a chuckle. “Still remember that, do you? Guess I made an impression.”

“It’s not every day that someone tries to comfort the boogeyman,” Pitch replied airily.

“Yeah, well, don’t worry about returning the favor. You’d be terrible at it anyhow.” Jack replied dismissively, waving a hand.

“You really do know me too well, don’t you?”

“Yeah, I do.”

For a little while they just lapsed into companionable silence.

Then something occurred to Jack. “…Hey, Pitch? Is there anyone who you miss, you know, from back when you were human?”

“I wasn’t,” the boogeyman replied with a shrug.

“What?”

“I wasn’t ever human. There’s always been fear, Jack. And I’ve always been there.”

“C’mon. I’ve only been around for three hundred some years, and there was definitely fun before I was here. Tooth said we were all someone before we were chosen.”

Pitch laughed at that, a sharp, brittle sound. “Therein lies the difference between you and I, Jack. You were chosen, valuable, wanted. And I am not. No one  _chose_  me. I simply am.”

“Didn’t  _someone_  name you?”

“The first thing I remember was waking in pitch blackness. I took the name for myself,” Pitch replied simply.

“…Were you alone ever since then?” Jack asked softly, after a pause.

Pitch rounded on Jack, anger sparking in his gaze. “I don’t need your  _pity_ , Jack. I had- I have _always_  had a purpose. At my birth, I knew that I was meant to spread fear. I was meant to strike terror into the hearts of humanity. And I did! I did until you lot  _stole_  that from me!” Pitch snarled, hands curling into fists. He stalked towards Jack before he seemed to realize what he was doing and halted mid-stride. He clenched his jaw and wrenched his gaze off of the Guardian, jerkily turning his head to look off in the distance. He let out a long, hissing breath before he spoke again. “So, to answer your question, no. There’s no one who I miss. There is no one _to_ miss.”

It took Jack a moment to respond. “…Okay, then.”

“I won’t disturb you any longer,” Pitch stated flatly, and melted back into the shadows, leaving a somewhat confused Jack behind.


	60. Disagreement

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oops, sorry guys, family’s been visiting and my free time has been all but devoured. I didn’t mean to let the updates lapse this long, though. My bad. Here, have a thing.

Pitch was lounging on his throne, half dozing and idly carding his fingers through the sandy pelt of a Hellhound that was nuzzled up against his side. He'd had a very productive evening, filled to the brim with gasps and shrieks of terror, and he was feeling sated and content and lazy. Half-formed concepts for new frights and nightmares swirled and danced past his lidded eyes.

Everything seemed right with the world, which of course meant it wasn't going to last.

A shrill, dreadful, and discordant blast of noise echoed through the lair, jerking Pitch rudely out of his reverie and setting the Hellhound growling.

Pitch stumbled to his feet, clapping his hands over his ears as the noise continued. Was this some sort of new attack from the Guardians? It sounded like a dying animal. Shoving aside his initial inclination to get away from whatever was making that racket, Pitch strode through his lair as imposingly as it was possible to be with his fingers still stuffed in his ears. If the fool thought they could drive him away so easily, they were in for a rude awakening.

He reached the area where the perpetrator was, and he realized he really shouldn't have been surprised.

Jack was perched on one of the cages near the entrance to the lair, blowing enthusiastically into a harmonica he had cupped in his hands. The brat must have had one heck of a lung capacity to produce the volume of screeches that were reverberating through Pitch's home.

"Stop that!" Pitch shouted over the din.

Jack paused and looked up, flashing Pitch one of his usual grins. "Oh, hi. How's it going?"

"What the devil are you doing?!" Pitch demanded.

"Practicing, of course!" Jack replied cheerily, tossing the harmonica from hand to hand. "I found this in the snow in Michigan and I thought I might as well try to learn something new."

"And  _what_ , pray tell, gave you the impression that here would be the best place for you to do that?"

"Well, um, all the other Guardians threw me out when I went to their places," Jack replied, slightly sheepishly.

Pitch folded his arms. "And you don't think that I'll do the same?"

"Nope! I'm your best pal, after all, and you put up with all kinds of stuff from me. Besides, you like dancing, I can provide musical accompaniment," Jack said with a smile, starting to lift the harmonica back to his lips.

"You do think rather highly of yourself, don't you?" Pitch asked, eyes narrowing.

"Am I wrong?" Jack replied.

Pitch rolled his eyes. "Well, you're right about one thing, I'll grant you. I'm nothing like the Guardians, and I'm not going to throw you out."

Jack grinned in triumph, at least until a coil of nightmare sand looped around the harmonica and yanked it sharply out of his hand. "Hey!"

"No, doing that would only delay the issue, not solve it. Instead…" The nightmare sand deposited the instrument in Pitch's hand and he idly turned it this way and that, as if inspecting it. "I'm going to throw  _this_  out." He tossed the harmonica to the side and it was swallowed by shadows.

"Give it back, you jerk!" Jack demanded, springing to his feet and looking irritated.

"Hmmm, no. I don't think I will." Pitch replied, turning around and fluttering his fingers in an airy farewell. "Stick to making snow, Frost."

"You'll regret this, Pitch!"

"I'm shaking in my boots," Pitch drawled, disappearing back into the depths of his lair.

* * *

The next several weeks definitely  _did not_ see Pitch regretting his decision. No. Definitely not.

He simply began to wish that he lived in a universe without any musical instruments in it.

Because Jack seemed determined to use each and every single one that had ever been invented to try to drive him insane. Pitch was certain that the Guardian was raiding North's Christmas supplies, because he didn't know how else Jack was managing to get his hands on everything from a kazoo to a full one-man band as he dropped randomly out of the sky to assail the boogeyman's ears once more.

Pitch would have thought there was at least one instrument that Jack wouldn't be completely terrible with, but he was wrong. That or Jack was purposefully butchering every note he made just to make Pitch even more miserable.

The last straw had been when Jack dropped by the window of a child's bedroom with a  _bassoon_ , of all things, just as Pitch was coaxing a Nightmare to its full potential. The deep, booming blast of noise startled the boy awake and ruined all of Pitch's hard work.

The boogeyman let out an aggravated snarl, dragging his hands down his face in exasperation. Without so much as a glance in Jack's direction, he vanished.

* * *

The next several weeks saw the boogeyman promptly melting away as soon as Jack came anywhere near, usually before he could even get a word out.

It was a bit weird, really. Jack had never taken Pitch to be one to give out the silent treatment. But the Nightmare King seemed very set on ignoring Jack's existence and that was surprisingly very effective in bothering the frost spirit. It seemed like he still had an issue with being treated like he was invisible, even after all these years.

"Hey, Pitch, why're you avoiding me? Do you admit defeat?" Jack asked, finally flitting into the lair and alighting on a jut of stone. He decided he'd stay put and pester Pitch for as long as he had to, to get the boogeyman talking to him again. Though it turned out that he needn't have worried.

"Oh no, Jack. I was simply waiting for you to be foolish enough to set foot in my domain again…" Pitch's voice echoed from the darkness, and the shadows all around him rose up and dragged him down, down through a dizzying drop and a juddering stop.

Jack found himself in a cavern that seemed to have been abandoned for years, a thick coating of dust laying over everything. Not a breath of air stirred in the depths, no sounds reached the Guardian's ears but that of his own breathing, everything seemed to be utterly still and silent and dead. It certainly  _felt_  like Pitch's lair, as though something dark and twisted could come shambling out of the shadows at any moment, but this was no place that Jack had ever seen before. "Hm. Well, I'll give it a 7 for atmosphere." He said lightly, slinging his staff over his shoulders. "What's the deal with this?"

"You interfered with my  _job,_  Jack. I don't take kindly to that. So you're going to stay here out of the way while I do what I do best," Pitch's cold voice answered him from the shadows, though no gleam of eyes or teeth could be seen.

"Pfft. You think  _this_ will be able to keep me out of your hair?" Jack asked, raising an eyebrow and glancing around.

"Oh, I don't think you understand just how deep the shadows go, Jack. It might take you  _years_  to find your way to the surface… Maybe when I come back from tonight's scaring I'll bring you out. Or maybe I'll find the peace and quiet just to my fancy. Who knows?"

The creepy feeling that Jack had come to associate with the boogeyman faded away, leaving Jack in the darkness. Alone. "Pitch!" Jack called, but there was no response. The Guardian made a frustrated noise and ran his hand through his hair. "Stupid moody dramatic jerk. I have work to do too, you butt!" he yelled out through the space, but, disquietingly, not even his echo answered him back.

Jack blew out a breath and wandered off in a random direction. Everything looked the same and the sense of no progress being made was annoying. After half an hour Jack shrugged and conjured up a fluffy white bank of snow. No point to stumbling around aimlessly, and it was nice and quiet here. He'd catch some shut-eye, and hopefully it would accomplish both passing the time until Pitch came back  _and_ not giving Pitch the satisfaction of Jack getting lost and frantic.

He flopped into the snow and burrowed into it, curling up happily, surrounded by his element.

* * *

Pitch was supremely unimpressed when he returned to find Jack snoring peacefully away in the heart of his lair. The sheer, unmitigated  _gall_  of the boy…

A small herd of Nightmares had gathered near the Guardian, whickering and eyeing him hungrily, but none made the move to come any closer. Aside from one occasion, Pitch had kept and ruthlessly enforced the order for the Nightmares to leave Jack alone, and by now they all knew better than to try to feed off of the winter spirit. Though Pitch was really not sure  _why_  he continued to hold them back, considering how utterly infuriating Jack was.

By all rights, he should sic the Nightmares on Jack, on the boy foolish enough to slumber within the realm of nightmares.

But on the other hand, that would be rather uninspired, wouldn't it?

No, he had a far better idea.

* * *

Jack's eyes fluttered open to daylight. He was outside once more. Pitch must have moved him while he slept. Well, that seemed about in character for the creep…

Jack abruptly became aware that he could feel the little pinpricks of dozens of little legs through the fabric of his hoodie. Dropping his gaze to his chest, he was greeted by the sight of five massive scorpions staring him straight in the face.

His scream echoed through the entire forest and sent whole flocks of birds flying away from the sudden noise.

The insects turned out to have been dead and preserved even before they were flash-frozen, but that was of little comfort to Jack, who could still  _feel_  the little legs and pincers against his skin.


	61. Amends

Jack had started dropping in on the Guardians more frequently as of late. And staying longer than he usually did during his visits, too.

Bunnymund was the first to bring it up as they sat side-by-side in the Warren, painting eggs. "Mate, I've seen an awful lot of you lately. North and Tooth and Sandy have, too. Not that I'm complaining or nothing, but is something wrong?"

Jack shrugged. "Well, you know, it's just that time of the year. Winter isn't really in full swing in the Northern or Southern hemisphere yet and I've got a lot of spare time I don't really know what to do with."

"Huh, yeah, I can see that. But shouldn't this be a yearly or bi-yearly occurrence, then?" Bunnymund asked, scratching behind one of his ears.

"Oh, generally I'd just bug Pitch around this time, 'cause you guys are busy a lot," Jack mumbled.

Huh. Bunnymund hadn't been aware of just how much time the two of them spent together, if Pitch usually occupied the time that was now being split between the four other Guardians. He was kind of surprised that Pitch hadn't tried to murder Jack; the Nightmare King had never really struck him as someone who was willing to put up with the antics that Jack was famous for. "Why the change?"

"Pitch is a dumb butt and I don't like him anymore," Jack muttered, crossing his arms and staring off to one side.

"What?" Bunnymund's eyes narrowed. "What'd he do?"

"He put bugs on me!" Jack exclaimed indignantly.

Bunnymund paused for a second, blinking. Then he let out a half-stifled snort of laughter, raising one paw to hide the grin spreading over his face. "He what?"

"Hey, it's not funny!"

"No, no, you're right. It's completely awful. Truly his evil knows no bounds," the Easter Guardian intoned solemnly, but the mirthful shaking of his shoulders belied his seriousness.

"They were big ones!"

"Ah, mate, one of these days I gotta show you some of the beasties we've got down under. Then you can talk about big bugs," Bunnymund replied, ruffling Jack's hair.

Jack grumbled and gave Bunnymund a light shove. "I'm surrounded by wiseasses."

"Hey, it takes one to know one, ya gallah."

Jack cracked a smile. "Yeah, that's true enough. I'm probably the worst one. Hey, d'you think that means I can get crowned High King of the Wiseasses?"

"Only if I get to be your advisor."

"But isn't the advisor typically the one who tries to overthrow the king and take the throne for his own?"

"Too right," Bunnymund replied with a smirk.

Jack gasped and pressed a hand to his chest in mock mortification. "Treason! Treason in the ranks! Off with his head!"

The rest of the visit dissolved into a playful scuffle and an impromptu snowball fight.

* * *

At first, the Guardians were relieved that Jack didn't seem to be associating with Pitch anymore. After all, he was still the Nightmare King, and supposed to be their enemy.

But after two weeks of Jack's near-constant presence, seemingly inexhaustible energy, and boundless enthusiasm for all things icy and slippery, the Guardians were starting to rethink that opinion. During a rare quiet moment they gathered up at the Workshop to discuss the situation. The lot of them looked weary and bedraggled.

Tooth wrung her hands. "I mean it's not like I don't like having him around or anything like that, the girls and I all love Jack! But the way he's being right now is just, just…"

"Exhausting?" Bunnymund supplied.

Sandy nodded sleepily.

"Da, and the yetis are not so happy about having to defrost everything every other day, either," North added.

"I don't understand, though. He's always been energetic, but usually he isn't quite so manic..." Tooth said, smoothing down some of her askew feathers.

North stroked his beard. "Might be compensating? Could be that he misses Pitch but does not want to think about it, so has to keep busy all the time."

"Come on, North, who would miss  _Pitch_?" Bunnymund said dismissively.

"They have been friends for many years now, almost as long as he has been a Guardian. Is not so surprising," North replied with a shrug.

"...If Jack's doing something like this, what do you think Pitch is doing?" Tooth mused aloud, looking pensive.

There was a moment of silence at that last statement, then the Guardians looked at each other with wide eyes. As much as Pitch tried to deny it, Jack had been a good influence on him. The rest of them could almost forget, at times, that this boogeyman was the same one they'd been enemies with for centuries. What sort of behavior could they expect if that influence suddenly went away?

"Oh, that could be bad," North muttered, remembering the incident at the Workshop when Jack had gone missing. "Sandy, has Pitch been doing anything out of the ordinary with the Nightmares during the evenings?"

Sandy bit his lip in thought, then shook his head. He created a silhouette of the boogeyman and made an X with his arms.

"You haven't seen Pitch making any personal visits recently?" North asked.

Sandy shook his head again.

"So he's been staying in his lair?" Tooth wondered.

"That or he's just been flying under the radar," Bunnymund said with a frown. "What should we do?"

"Well, easiest solution would be to have them be friends again," North said.

Bunnymund groaned and rested his face in his paw. "I cannot believe I'm agreeing to this."

"But how would we even do that?" Tooth asked.

Sandy conjured a snowflake, a slim silhouette, and some speech bubbles.

"You think just getting them to talk would work?"

"Well, Jack forgave Pitch for… evil. Bugs shouldn't be big deal." North replied.

"True. If he's gonna nurse a grudge over this point of all things, we're really gonna need to talk to him about priorities," Bunnymund said.

* * *

The plan to get Jack to talk to Pitch was somewhat less than inspired. At least part of that could be blamed on the fact that Jack flitted into the workshop right in the middle of their brainstorming session, however.

"Hey guys, what's happening?"

"Jack, do you think you could go have a word with Pitch?" Tooth blurted out.

"What? Why?" Jack asked, the smile dropping off of his face.

"Er…" North's eyes scanned the workshop. "The elves have been having nightmares. We think Pitch might be responsible."

Jack raised an eyebrow skeptically. "Elves."

"…Yes, that's right," Bunnymund said stiffly, and Sandy slapped a hand over his own forehead.

Jack cracked a smile again, shaking his head. "You guys… Well, the elves are  _very_  important. I suppose if you think it's necessary for me to do this…"

* * *

When Jack came into the lair, the boogeyman was lurking off to one side, a mass of nightmare sand swirling in front of him. Shadows slid over his skin seemingly of their own accord, sometimes looking jagged and sharp and other times dripping over his form like water or blood. More shadows pooled at his feet, writhing and reaching out along walls and floors with clawed-tipped hands in jerky, inhuman movements.

Pitch seemed to pay them no mind, instead muttering and coaxing the nightmare sand before him to shift into the image of ever more disturbing apparitions and monstrosities.

Jack drifted over, hovering nearby. He noted absentmindedly Pitch's shadows all seemed to converge on the shadow he cast on the ground, swarming it.

"Are you  _sulking_?" Jack asked, raising one eyebrow.

Pitch paused and turned his head minutely until he was able to fix Jack with one baleful yellow eye. "What do you want, Frost?"

"Oh, you know, I just came here to tell you that I'm willing to admit I was right if you're ready to admit that you were wrong," Jack replied, raising his hands and shrugging his shoulders.

"If you think there's a snowball's chance in hell of that happening…" Pitch growled.

"Fine, fine, I'll settle for just an apology then. You don't even have to grovel, much."

"I refuse to apologize for something that was completely justified."

"You trapped me in your lair and dumped  _scorpions_  on me!"

"I was provoked!"

The Guardians all cautiously peered into the lair, watching from a distance as Jack talked to Pitch.

"Do you think they're they reconciling?" Tooth asked in a whisper.

"I can't tell-"

There was a sudden yelp and the Guardians quickly snapped their gazes back to the pair. Jack had been grabbed by the ankle by a coil of nightmare sand and yanked upwards. He was dangling upside down and was being yelled at by Pitch. Jack hollered something back and a powerful gust of wind whipped past the Guardians and barreled down on Pitch, snatching at his robes and flipping the back of it up over Pitch's head. The boogeyman cursed and flailed, tangled in his own clothing.

The Guardians breathed a collective sigh of relief. "Yep. They're back to normal."


	62. Tastes

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've put in some art for this chapter by done Fanartdrawer; requested by my friend Nightpounce. It can also be found on tumblr at <http://fanartdrawer.tumblr.com/post/94383371718/this-has-been-a-while-on-my-hard-drive-and-i>

The both of them wound up in the same town one night and a sort of wordless agreement to take a break had been reached. Pitch had seated himself at the edge of a tall apartment building, absentmindedly tapping his fingers on the brick and looking up at the snow-clouded night sky.

Jack was laying on his back, letting his head dangle off the edge and staring out at the upside-down view of the city that he was granted. "Hey, Pitch, what's your favorite food?" He asked, watching lights blink on and off in the windows of the city below.

"Favorite?" Pitch leaned back on his arms, humming pensively. "My, that's a tough question. How am I supposed to pick just one?" He clicked his tongue against his teeth. "I suppose, if I was pressed, I'd say the it's that thrill of terror and apprehension when someone steps into a dark and unknown area. When all manner of things spring to their imagination and they realize just how vulnerable they are…" He shivered in delight at the thought.

Jack sat up gave the boogeyman a flat look. "That's not what I meant."

"Oh, but fear  _is_  my sustenance, Jack. My bread and butter, as it were. You should know that by now."

"I was talking about actual physical food, alright?"

"Fine, fine," Pitch acquiesced, holding his hands up and bowing his head slightly. He lifted his head and flashed a sharp-toothed smile. "Children, then."

"Pitch…"

"Haven't you heard the tales, Jack? Of the things I do with misbehaving children?" He chuckled and dissolved into a shadow. The shade slunk close to where Jack lay. "Sometimes I'll start my way from the toes up, one by one…" Shadowy hands slid over Jack's bare feet, seeming to curl around to grip his ankles. There was no sensation of touch, though, only the sight of darkness on his skin.

Jack snorted and drew his feet back, out of the clutches of the boogeyman. Pitch's shadowy form flitted into the patch of darkness cast on the roof by the edge of the building.

"Or other times I'll begin with the ears. Those are always nice and tender…" This time there was a touch, a quick tug on one of Jack's earlobes.

"Quit it," Jack said with a half-laugh, swatting ineffectively at the darkness.

"Oh, and the eyes are such a treat. They burst in your mouth like grapes."

"Gross, Pitch." Jack replied, sticking out his tongue.

"Can't say I've ever done too much with noses, though. Maybe you can give me some pointers, you're always supposed to be nipping at them yourself, aren't you?"

"That's just a saying."

"Is it? Such a shame…" Pitch winked back into tangibility, several yards away. "Then what's your idea of a treat, if not the succulent cartilage of the young?"

Jack rolled his eyes. "Sweets. Ice cream in particular."

"How very shocking. Truly you are an endless well of surprises, Jack."

"Oh, you want unexpected? Well, Tooth introduced me to kaeng phet, and I like that too!"

"…What is that? Some kind of toothpaste?"

Jack grinned. "Oh, you should try it."

Pitch looked apprehensive. "If that's your reaction I'm actually quite sure that I shouldn-"

"I'll bring some for next time! See you!" Jack said with a laugh, leaping off the roof and letting the winds whisk him off to the next town that needed a snowstorm.

Pitch groaned.

* * *

Jack flitted into the lair a few days after that, strangely wearing a pair of heavy mittens and carrying a cloth-swaddled bundle under one arm. He landed near a waist-high slab of rock and set the object down. "Pitch!" he yelled.

"I'm not a being who can just be called out every time you show up, Jack…" Pitch grumbled as he did just that.

"Right, sure. I'll keep that in mind." Jack replied dismissively, unwrapping the bundle and clumsily pulling off the lid of a styrofoam take-out container. The contents, some kind of yellowish sauce and chunks of what were presumably meat or vegetables, steamed faintly. Jack grinned triumphantly and held out a plastic fork to the Nightmare King. "Here, give it a try."

Pitch stared down at the stew or whatever it was. "That does not look appetizing at all."

"Come onnnn. It's even still warm! Do you have any idea how hard that is to pull off?" Jack whined.

"I believe you'll find that I don't particularly care, Frost." Pitch replied.

"Just one bite, Pitch."

"No."

"Just-"

"No."

"One-"

"No."

"Bite."

"No."

"Pleeeeeeeeeeee-"

"Why are you so infuriating?" Pitch growled.

"Just lucky, I guess." Jack replied, grinning.

Pitch let out a snarl and snatched the fork from the Guardian, violently stabbing a hunk of the food and eating it grumpily. "There! Now go- Haaaah!" He let out a shocked breath and clapped a hand over his mouth. "What- what have you done to me?!"

"It's just spicy. This is kaeng phet, a type of Thai curry," Jack replied cheerily.

"It burns!" Pitch exclaimed, and grabbed Jack by the front of his hoodie. "Snow. Now!" he demanded.

Jack chuckled and stripped off one of the mittens and produced a handful of snow, which Pitch promptly took and shoved in his mouth. "Ah, yes, the terror that lurks in the hearts of men," Jack said.

Pitch scraped the snow out of his mouth to snarl: "GET OUT!" and a pack of Hellhounds surged out of the shadows to chase Jack, laughing, back to the entrance of the lair.


	63. Gesture

At some point Jack became aware of just how often Pitch did things for him. Nice things, at least by Pitch standards. Though of course he'd never get the guy to admit to intending them as such, but that was par for the course with the Nightmare King.

And Jack felt like he could probably stand to give him something that wasn't meant to backfire on Pitch in some way. If for no other reason than that it would keep him off-balance. And besides, Christmas  _was_ just around the corner. T'was the season.

But what?

Well, Pitch liked creepy things. There were plenty of creepy things around.

Not a spider, though. Or a centipede. Or anything that had more than four legs. He didn't particularly feel like giving Pitch more ammunition in that vein.

He remembered a conversation he had recently with a kid who wanted to grow up to be a marine biologist, and the vast amount of books and pictures that he had been shown. There were _loads_  of bizarre and unsettling things lurking in the darkest, deepest parts of the ocean.

Something like an anglerfish would be right up Pitch's alley.

Jack grinned and shot off to go have a conversation with Triton.

* * *

Bartering a couple of favours got Jack a downright horrifying-looking fish, with dozens of needle-sharp teeth, blindly white eyes, and tattered black fins, along with an enchanted glass bubble that kept the water pressure at the levels that were normally found three-thousand feet beneath the ocean.

Jack grinned and peered in through the glass. "There's a face that only the boogeyman could love," he said with a chuckle as the fish clacked its teeth at him. Then he noticed that holding onto the glass was sending frost spreading over its surface. "Oops, sorry!" he said, setting the globe down and pulling out a roll of silver wrapping paper.

* * *

Getting Pitch to actually  _accept_  the present was more of a task than expected. Maybe he'd been a little bit too enthusiastic with his prank gifts? …Naw, there was no such thing as too many pranks. That'd be silly!

"Look, just give it a chance!" Jack wheedled.

"We've been through this, Frost. I don't want any blasted Christmas presents!" Pitch snapped, crossing his arms and glaring. "Go bother someone with it who  _doesn't_  loathe the entire holiday!"

"Could you be any more grouchy?"

"I could try, if you'd like," Pitch replied.

"Don't think of it as a Christmas present then. It'll be, like, a Krampus Day present."

"If  _that_  was the worldwide celebration, instead of this sickening fawning over the fat man, then I'd be happy to accept tributes on it. However, it's not. And being reminded of this fact is bringing me the  _opposite_  of cheer and goodwill towards men."

"Because you're a regular _fountain_  of that sort of sentiment normally, right?" Jack retorted, rolling his eyes. "How about a belated birthday present then?"

"I don't  _have_  a birthday, Frost."

"Look, would you just take the stupid thing?!" Jack snapped, thrusting the object forward and feeling his powers spike with his irritation. Ice raced over the surface of the wrapping. Jack gasped. "Oh no oh no oh no…"

"What is it  _now_?"

Jack set down the globe and tore the wrapping off, revealing the entirely frozen tank. Jack hissed in dismay.

"Is… is that an anglerfish?" Pitch asked with some interest, leaning in for a closer look.

"It was," Jack sighed, tapping the glass glumly. "I didn't mean to…"

"Making a mess as always, Jack."

The Guardian flinched, clutching his staff to his chest, backing away. "Sorry," he mumbled, whether to the fish or to Pitch, he wasn't sure. And in a flurry of snow, he was gone.

Pitch shook his head and sighed.

* * *

Jack was napping in a tree a few days later, resting after the usual rush of white Christmases he had to deliver. He was brought into a kind of wakefulness by a hissing, gurgling whisper that poured over him like salt water and crude oil.

"Jack… Jaaaack… You killed me, Jack…"

Jack grumbled sleepily and his eyes fluttered open. He was greeted by the sight of needle-teeth in a gaping mouth that happened to be inches from his face.

Jack let out a shriek of surprise and horror and recoiled, falling off of his branch. The wind caught him before he hit the ground and he clutched at his chest, panting. A dark chuckle reverberated from the shadows. "You know, I never get tired of that."

"Pitch, what…" he trailed off when he looked up and saw a Nightmare canter up to him, tossing its head. In between the creature's ribs he could see a speck of light darting to and fro. He floated to one side of the horse to get a better look. "Is that-?"

"I was able to salvage the thing, yes. Freezing to death is rarely a quick thing, you should know that. It defrosted reasonably well."

"But why is it in a Nightmare?"

Pitch reappeared beside the horse and shrugged. "My darlings can be quite handy for transporting things, Jack. You remember what a good job they did with the tooth fairies, don't you?" Pitch ran a hand fondly over the creature's flank and the anglerfish followed it, the eerie light emitted from its lure casting all manner of menacing shadows over the predatory teeth and the Nightmare. "Besides, I think it's a lovely addition. This Nightmare is going to be very good at its job. And we'll see which children still think that the beach and sea life are delightful things when I'm done with them. Oh, Sanderson isn't going to know what hit him." Pitch said gleefully, rubbing his hands.

Jack blinked, wondering if he should be concerned about this. Pitch probably wouldn't take kindly to him trying to take the thing back, though."Uh… Well, I'm glad you like it?" he ventured.

"Oh, I very much do."

"Though I'm going to tell you that if you tick Sandy off with this, I'm not going to come to your rescue again."

"Duly noted. Your concern for my wellbeing is touching," Pitch deadpanned.


	64. Fire

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Whoops, sorry, fresh out of zany antics. Instead, have some Pitch being, well, Pitch.

It was a night like any other. Or at least, like any other night where Jack Frost didn't come barreling out of the sky to harass him.

Pitch was doing his rounds, checking on the work of his Nightmares, being that ominous, lurking presence in the dark as people left the safety of their beds for a late night trip to the bathroom, reaching out to brush at people's ankles as they swung their legs off of the edge of the bed, that sort of thing. Basic scares, really.

There was one boy's room that he paused at, confused. The child had a Nightmare above his head, prancing and forming a scenario where he was lost, in the woods, entirely alone. A classic. Oh, and there were jagged, gaping holes in the ground that lead into caves full of all manner of invisible but no doubt dreadful things, too. That was a nice touch.

But there was a bizarre acrid tang in the air. That wasn't right, the fear that he should be tasting should be savoury and a little sour, like an overripe tomato. The charred, carbonic taste tended to come from fears of wasting diseases, of infirmity and frailty and old age, and that wasn't something this boy would be thinking about, not at his age.

It took him a moment to realize that what he was sensing didn't have anything to do with fear at all. It was an actual physical scent, seeping into the bedroom from under the door.

Smoke. What was going on?

A quick trip downstairs revealed that some kind of faulty wiring must have caused a spark. Flames had been kindled, and by now there was a sizable blaze spreading through the living room. Pitch's eyes narrowed at the appallingly bright, flickering light that the fire cast, and he slunk backwards, away from it. This was no place for him.

Or for humans either, for that matter. Why hadn't the smoke detector gone off? Another swift investigation revealed dead batteries. Of course. Pitch sighed. If somone in the house didn't wake up soon, they'd all asphyxiate from the smoke. Not that it was any of his business, of course. He had other things to do tonight. Watching over the wellbeing of humans wasn't something he should concern himself with.

...Still, the boy seemed to have a good imagination, what with those pits. Pitch was mildly interested in what else the boy might come up with. And, really, it would be a shame to let the potential for further horrors to be snuffed out.

Pitch rolled his eyes and flitted back upstairs to the child's bedroom. He was in the well in the grip of the nightmare now, eyes shuttling swiftly behind his eyelids and hands clutching his blankets. Not enough, though. He wasn't scared enough to wake up.

Pitch reached out and laid a hand on the neck of his Nightmare, sending a surge of fright coursing through the creature. It twisted into something dark and looming and savage, seizing the boy's dream-self and dragging him into a maw lined with rows upon rows of razor-sharp teeth.

The child awoke with a choked gasp. Pitch seized him by the front of his pajamas before he could dive beneath the covers and be beyond the boogeyman's influence. He simply couldn't allow the boy to fall back to sleep. Pitch hauled him out of bed. "Scream. Scream for your parents, boy," Pitch hissed, carrying the struggling child to the window of his second-floor bedroom. Shadows pushed open the glass and Pitch held him out over open air. "They're the only ones that can save you now!"

The child did as he was told, putting his young lungs to their proper use and sending shrieks of terror and pleas for aid echoing through the night. Music to Pitch's ears.

There was a flurry of movement from the other bedroom and the sounds of rapidly approaching footfalls.

"Aaron!" the child's mother shrieked, scrambling into the room to see her son desperately trying to keep a hold of the windowsill, unable to see the dark figure that had placed him in such a precarious position. The father was only a step behind, and they rushed into the room to try to grab Aaron.

Pitch caught the boy's eyes with his own and gave him a razor-thin smile. "Good boy," he whispered, and dropped him.

The scream that tore from all three of their throats was simply sublime.

A coil of nightmare sand grabbed the boy and caught his fall before he could strike the ground, depositing him safely on the grass. Pitch quickly sidestepped out of the way of the adults before they could charge through him on their way to look out the window in desperation. The way that the child was still wailing on the lawn below let them know that he was still alive, at least.

There. They'd go downstairs to collect their son, and see the fire.

The family would live to see another day, assuming the parents were smart enough to not run back inside to try to rescue belongings. With a hum, Pitch mentally took a hold of the panic that was already spiking through the air and twisted it like a knife in a wound. The two adults nearly tripped over themselves in their haste to scramble downstairs, all thoughts gone but for the desperate need to ensure the safety of their child. With their flight instinct already kicked in, returning to the house would be the last thing on their minds.

Pitch took one last moment to stand and savour the fright and horror that surged through the house when the parents saw the fire. He sighed in delight. This had been very productive indeed. And it was likely the child would think him responsible for the destruction of his home, too. Pitch grinned as he sank into the shadows. Becoming such a figure of dread without even having to do much work, how splendid. Maybe this would even spark a new urban legend or monster myth. He couldn't wait to see what was come up with.


	65. Article

"Pitch, I thought we were buddies! Why didn't you tell me such an important thing?" Jack demanded, tapping the boogeyman on the shoulder with his staff.

"There's a great deal of things I never tell you, Jack. Which one, exactly, are you referring to?" Pitch asked flatly, dusting off the frost that had started to spread over his robe.

"That you're actually an angel, of course!"

Pitch faltered for an instant, then fixed Jack with a blank stare. "A what?"

"An angel! You even made the news, look!" Jack held out a crumpled wad of newpaper.

Pitch gave Jack another look that communicated that he was seriously questioning the sanity of the Guardian, but he took the paper and smoothed it out, brushing the frost off of it to make it legible again. The headline read:

**_Local Family Credits Their Survival to a Miracle_ **

_Last Thursday night, the Wengret family's home went up in flames. Fortunately, there was no loss of life and the firefighters that arrived at the scene were able to contain the blaze before it spread to other houses. The story of how the family of three escaped the fire certainly seems out of the ordinary, however._

_"Our smoke detector never went off, we had no idea the house was on fire. We were all asleep," Maria Wengret told reporters. "We were woken up by our son screaming for help. When we came into his room, he was outside of the window, barely hanging onto the window ledge."_

_"We didn't think much of it at the time, but Aaron can't reach the latch on the window. There wasn't any way he could have opened it. Aaron said that there was someone in the room who woke him up and told him to call for us," Garrett Wengret added._

_"It was the boogeyman!" the Wengret's six-year-old son claimed. "He was big and tall with yellow eyes and he was scary! He pushed me out of the window!"_

_"We couldn't get there in time. Aaron fell from a second story window, but he came out without so much as a scratch. And it got the both of us out of the house before the fire had spread far enough to block the exits." Garrett continued._

_"If that's not a sign of divine intervention, I don't know what is. Someone made sure we got out all right," Maria stated._

_"Angels are watching over us," they both agreed._

_Whatever the case might be with this story, it is truly fortunate that a potential tragedy was averted. Already the community is rallying together to provide support and shelter for this recently displaced family..._

Pitch gaped at the article in disbelief. "Angel? DIVINE INTERVENTION?!" he squawked.

Jack chuckled. "Ah, don't be bashful now. It's obvious that you are an agent of a benevolent higher power, under all that shadow and grime."

"I threw a six-year-old out of a second floor window!" Pitch exclaimed.

"Psssh." Jack flapped a hand dismissively. "So? I brought an eight-year-old into traffic on a sled, remember? All's well that ends well."

Pitch glared disdainfully at the Guardian. "If that comparison was meant to illustrate that one of us isn't cut out for the job he has, I'm pretty sure it would be you."

"So defensive," Jack said, shaking his head. "You don't  _always_  have to be the malevolent horror that stalks the night, you know."

"It's not my fault if  _some people_  refuse to be terrorized properly! I did my best!" Pitch snapped, viciously tearing the paper in two. He threw the pieces in Jack's face. "The blasted child just had to mention my name, didn't he? Who knows what this could do to my reputation! I'm going to have to start doing damage control now." He whistled and several Nightmares came cantering up to him.

"Better make sure you don't 'accidentally' save anyone else while you're at it," Jack teased.

Pitch whirled on the winter spirit. "OUT!" he snarled, shadows all around him rippling and giving the rather disconcerting appearance of the entire cavern shuddering.

"All right, all right, I'll leave you to your duties," Jack gave a mock salute and a cocky grin before zipping back out of the lair. He left the newspaper behind.


	66. Affection

There was a reason why the paper that Jack gave Pitch was all crumpled up.

The event hadn't taken place in a town that Jack would have normally frequented this time of year. He had originally dropped by the area because Baby Tooth had let him know that one of the children she was supposed to be collecting teeth from had moved suddenly.

Moving could be tough on a kid, so Jack had dropped by with Baby Tooth to see if he could offer some help. He'd caught sight of the burned out-shell of the place on his fly-by and immediately swooped down to look over the damage.

"Suppose this explains why the kid's not where he should be, huh?" he said, nudging a piece of charcoal with his staff. "I hope nobody was hurt…"

Baby Tooth chirped in agreement and patted Jack's cheek, gesturing that they should go. Dawn was less than an hour off and she had to get the tooth still. Jack spotted a paper on the step of a nearby home; delivered by a paperboy or girl in the early morning hours. It would probably have some information, right? "You go on ahead," Jack said, making shooing motions. "I'll catch up in just a sec."

Baby Tooth gave a little salute and flitted off. Jack picked up the newspaper and quickly spotted the article he was looking for; it was on the front page. He nearly choked when he read the contents. "You're kidding me," he chuckled, shaking his head. "Pitch, you actually do manage to…"

There was a trill that announced the return of Baby Tooth from her appointed task and Jack reflexively crumpled the paper up in his hands. He wasn't sure why he did it, exactly. It wasn't like it would be a problem if Baby Tooth and the rest of the Guardians found out about Pitch's 'good deed'. But Pitch probably wouldn't like it if they did. And besides, maybe they wouldn't take the whole child-out-a-window thing as well as the family had. "Kind of a lame paper, really. No selection of word puzzles and all they had were editorial cartoons, not funny ones." He stuck his tongue out and tossed the paper off to one side. "But, hey, it looks like everyone got clear of the fire alright."

That earned a bright little smile from his friend as she hugged the new tooth to her chest.

"Ah, you probably have to get back to the Tooth Palace, right?" Jack gave a little flourish with his staff. "I'll stick around for a bit to see if I can't help reassure the kid that he doesn't need to have all his old toys to still have fun."

After Baby Tooth had left, Jack stashed the paper under a bush to retrieve later, after he'd done his Guardian work. After all, just because he kept the others from noticing the action, didn't mean that he couldn't taunt Pitch a little himself.

* * *

Jack really hadn't expected anyone else to catch onto the deed. It had only made the news of a small town's paper, after all. It wasn't as though Bunnymund or North wandered outside of their realms often, and Sandy and Tooth were always so busy.

Apparently, though, Sandy wasn't quite as busy as Jack had thought, because the next time he stopped by to tease Pitch, the boogeyman had dramatically draped himself over one of his cages, an arm flung over his face.

"...Pitch?"

"They know..." he groaned. "Why me? Why is this my life?"

"What? Really?"

"Don't act so surprised. You told them, didn't you? Do you have any idea what you've done?" Pitch growled dejectedly.

Jack held up his hands. "Hey, it wasn't me. What happened?"

"Sanderson. He... I don't even want to _think_  about the charades he made to mock me with, but suffice to say that he made it  _eminently_ clear." Pitch rolled off the cage and started to pace, throwing up his hands in frustration. "Who knows what will be next. Hymnals from the fat man, I'm willing to bet."

"Well, maybe it's just Sandy that knows."

Pitch snorted. "Fat chance."

"You might not have noticed, but the little dude is pretty tight-lipped," Jack replied. "It's really not that big a deal, anyway."

"Of course it is! It's humiliating!"

Jack rolled his eyes. "Aw, poor thing. Life is so hard for you. Do you need a h-" he suddenly paused in the middle of his sentence, seeming to realize something. "Actually, you probably do. You probably need a whole boatload of them."

Pitch paused in his theatrics to stare questioningly at the Guardian. "Of wha-" He was cut off when Jack landed right in front of him and threw his arms around Pitch's middle. "What the devil are you doing?" the boogeyman demanded.

"It's called a hug, Pitch. Sometimes people will express affection towards someone else by squeezing them with their body," Jack quipped back.

"Yes, thank you for that educational vignette; I am aware of what a hug is. I don't know why you would feel inclined towards giving  _me_  one, though. Now, let go. You're  _freezing_ ," Pitch grumbled.

"No. I'm not letting go until you hug back." Jack replied.

Pitch glanced at the ground. He was standing in a patch of shadows; it would be easy enough to vanish into them...

He let out an aggrieved sigh and laid one arm across Jack, giving his right shoulder an awkward little pat.

"Both arms."

"Demanding brat," Pitch growled, considering how very easy it would be to wrap his hands around the Guardian's throat instead of his shoulders. Yet despite how tempting that idea was, he found himself resting his chin on the top of Jack's head (he hoped that was uncomfortable for the brat) and wrapping his other arm around the spirit. He squeezed once, lightly. "There. Happy now?" he snapped.

"Yeah," Jack said, releasing Pitch and hopping backwards. The Guardian grinned up at the boogeyman. "Now, was that so bad?"

"Yes," Pitch replied flatly, looking disdainfully down at the frost that had spread over the front of his robes. He brushed it off with a grimace. "That was quite possibly the worse experience of my existence."

"You drama queen."

"No, I'm being completely serious. I'm allergic to affection and kindness. I'm going to break out into hives at any moment now. I'll probably get nauseous too. In fact..." Pitch clapped a hand over his mouth and stumbled forwards towards Jack, feigning his stomach heaving.

"Ah! No, don't puke on me!" Jack cried, leaping backwards.

"But Jack, throwing up on someone is a time-honoured gesture of friendship among boogeymen..."

"No it isn't, you liar!"

"So only you're allowed to foist ridiculous gestures on me?"

"Yes!"

"Hmm, no. I hardly think that's fair. Now, resign yourself to your fate," Pitch said, advancing on the Guardian.

"Not on your life!" Jack laughed, darting off down a tunnel and away from the boogeyman.


	67. Name

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the delay, folks! Have a mildly serious chapter. Also, the fish from Chapter 63: Gesture, makes an appearance.

One day Jack managed to track down the Nightmare that acted as the anglerfish's fishbowl. He hummed and poked at the creature's ribs, earning a malevolent glare from the Nightmare and a flurry of movement from the fish. "So, have you named him?" he asked.

Pitch sighed. "It's a her, Jack."

"It is? That's one scary-looking lady."

"Male anglerfish are tiny, and look nothing like their female counterparts. They're hardly intimidating," Pitch replied flatly.

"Huh. Learn something new every day. Man, what with the Night _mares_ , that spider, -Sara?-, and now this little miss, you're a real ladies' man, aren't you?" Jack asked with a smirk.

Pitch snorted. "If you say so, Frost. It's not like I had any say in picking out the fish; you just foisted it on me after you attempted to murder it."

"Hey, that was an accident!" Jack protested, then returned to the previous subject. "So, did you give her a name yet?"

"No."

"Come on, she should have one! Oh, what about Angie? That seems to fit."

"I'm not going to name it, Jack," Pitch said coldly.

"What? Why not?"

He shrugged. "Because it would be foolish to attach any sentiment onto a creature that is simply going to die in a few years."

Jack blinked. "Wow, that's a sad outlook on life. No wonder you were so lonely."

That statement made Pitch's eyes narrow and his jaw tighten. "It's realistic, Jack. Don't think that because _you_  decided to form attachments to things that are slightly longer-lived than animals means that you won't learn this lesson the hard way." Pitch crossed his arms and thrust out his chin. "Just wait a few decades and you'll have to watch children who were once your believers fade away, and you won't be able to do a thing to stop it," he continued venomously.

Jack blinked, looking slightly taken aback. He drew his staff closer to his body. "You think that I haven't already?"

"What?"

Jack shrugged and looked away. The Nightmare took the opportunity to scurry back into the shadows. "The Guardians don't only watch over healthy kids, you know," he said.

Pitch paused at that. Really, he should have known this. He was all too aware of the harsh realities of life. It was just something about Jack that made him think that tragedy somehow never touched the cheerful winter spirit. Silly idea. "Then why-"

"Am I not all doom and gloom like you? Because it's worth it. You miss out on a lot if you're afraid to ever take a risk." Jack rubbed the back of his head, looking at the ground. "I mean, it doesn't ever get easier, losing people who you care about. I'm not saying it does. But the good times outweigh the bad a hundred times over. I don't think that any of my friends would want me to be sad or bitter about their lives, either. And so long as I remember them, they're never really gone. Why do you think Tooth keeps all the teeth of kids from hundreds of years ago?"

"I had always assumed it was because of her unhealthy obsession with molars and bicuspids," Pitch said dismissively.

"I don't really think you're someone to be talking about other people's obsessions…" Jack muttered.

"What was that?"

"Nothing!" Jack replied, lifting his head up and flashing one of his trademark grins. "Anyway, I suppose I can't really force you to change your outlook on things, especially since I'm pretty sure you've been a grump since day one. But I really think you could stand to make a few more friends. Even if they're creepy fish."

"I don't need friends," Pitch retorted haughtily.

Jack raised his hands in defeat. "Alright, alright, carry on being your big scary aloof self. Your choice and all. But I gotta jet, there's a snowstorm in Colorado with my name on it."

Pitch rolled his eyes. "Break a leg."

"…Was that wishing me good luck or ill fortune?" Jack asked, but Pitch just smiled thinly in reply. The Guardian shrugged and hopped onto an air current. "Whatever. I'll see you later."

With a gust of wintry air, Pitch's lair was once again free of meddlesome spirits. He sighed and tiredly ran a hand through his hair, mulling over Jack's words in his head.  _What a load of sentimental twaddle,_ he decided. But then again, what else could he expect from someone who was sworn to defend the hopes and dreams and happiness of children. Really, it was a miracle that everything Jack said wasn't some kind of saccharine hallmark dreck.

The Nightmare came to his side again and Pitch patted it fondly, thinking that it was really time for him to see to his job as well. And if he murmured, "Come along, Angie," before sliding into the shadows, it was only because he was preoccupied with his plans for the night and wasn't thinking about what he was saying.


	68. Representation

Pitch happened across Jack one evening while out on he was his rounds in shadow form. The Guardian was humming a cheery little tune and piling up snow into five vaguely humanoid shapes. Snowmen, presumably. All on his own though? Strange, normally he would indulge those sorts of activities when he was playing with his charges, not in an isolated little clearing in the middle of the night.

And considering what sort of things Jack could do with frost silhouettes, Pitch was frankly surprised he was bothering to muck about with snowmen at all. He slunk into a tree's shadow and watched silently, curious. It was only when the five figures started to become more defined did Pitch catch on to what Jack was up to. There was a short round one, a slim, petite one, a taller one with large pointed ears and a tall, bulky, practically square one. The Guardians, of course. The fifth figure, though, caught his attention. It was skinny enough to be Jack, but far too tall and angular and…

It was  _him_. It was a snowman of him. Jack had decided to, for whatever reason, include Pitch's effigy standing next to representations of his worst enemies. What for? Letting himself pretend that they were all one big happy family? Maybe some kind of half-thought through voodoo ploy to get the Guardians the boogeyman to get along better, who knew. Pitch let out a silent little snort. Yes, maybe Jack could harness the power of wishful thinking and the laughter of children and fluffy kittens and other inane sources of positive energy to see if he could get the King of Nightmares to play nicely with others. Completely solid plan, that one. That was so pathetic, it was almost endearing.

Jack continued his work, though, adding a few more details to the snowy forms before going to root around in a tattered backpack for more supplies. A generous fistful of golden glitter went over the sandman's snowman, a several brightly-coloured fake feathers and a set of tissue-paper wings for the fairy, what looked like a hand-made and -decorated bandolier for the rabbit, and a massive red coat and ridiculous hat for the fat man. There was even a black robe that looked like it had once been part of a Halloween costume for Pitch's snowman.

Jack stepped back to assess his work, looking over each figure in turn. He seemed to be happy enough with the snowmen, at least until he came to the end of the line and examined the boogeyman's. Then a frown creased his brow and he tapped a foot against the snow in what appeared to be some kind of contemplation. He seemed to come to some sort of conclusion and took a step back, raising his staff.

He brought the shepherd's crook across in a swift, ruthless strike and a blast of ice and winter wind crashed into the snowman, obliterating it.

An involuntary little noise of dismay escaped from Pitch, though it was thankfully covered up by the howl of the wind. What was that? Why would Jack do… Had he done something wrong?

No, no, this was stupid. There was no reason why he should care if Jack didn't deign to make some silly snow version of him to stand with some Guardian snowmen. In fact, he should be glad that Jack came to his senses and realized that not even an inanimate version of the boogeyman was supposed to be anywhere near others that were sworn to the cause of  _light_ and  _goodness._

Still, he hung around to see what, if anything, Jack would do next.

The Guardian shot off in one direction and just as quickly returned with several armfuls of snow. Not the fresh, virgin snow that laid in glittering piles all around the clearing, though. This stuff had to have come from a parking lot or something, because it was far more grey than white, mottled with dirt, grime, and oil and speckled throughout with flecks of gravel. It was this snow that Jack, after a few more lightning-fast trips back and forth, sculpted into the shape of the boogeyman once more. He stepped over to the pile of snow that he'd destroyed and plucked the black robe out of the wreckage, shaking it off and draping it back over the snowman.

It was a stark contrast, the dark and monochrome figure next to the brightly coloured and sparkling others, but Jack seemed happy enough with his work now. A wide grin flashed over his face and he chuckled lightly to himself. "It's not perfect by any stretch of the imagination, is it?" he inclined his head backwards to gaze up at the moon. "But I don't think I'd have it any other way."

He dropped his eyes back to the snowmen and gave a wink and a mock little salute. "Take care, you guys. Try not to kill each other while I'm gone, hey?" he said, and shot back off into the night in a flurry of snowflakes and laughter.

Pitch contemplated for a moment wrecking all the Guardian snowmen.  _Well, Jack, what did you expect, leaving the Guardians alone with their worst enemy?_

But Jack did seem to derive some kind of happiness from the idea that they could all actually coexist. Pitch rolled his eyes.  _Fine, let the boy have his little fantasy,_  he thought. _It's not like it will change anything._  He had other things to do tonight anyway. With that, Pitch flitted off into the darkness as well.


	69. Metaphor

Jack perched on the broken bedframe that marked the entrance to Pitch's lair. He was humming happily and tunelessly and munching on a sandwich.

"You're getting crumbs  _everywhere_ ," Pitch grumbled, flowing out of the hole in the ground and coalescing into his tangible form. He crossed his arms and looked down at Jack disapprovingly.

Jack stuck his tongue out at the boogeyman. "Jeez, you're awful fussy for someone who leaves gritty black nightmare bits wherever you go."

"I do not just leave it in random places, it goes exactly where it's supposed to! Unless an overzealous Guardian decides to blast one of my dear Nightmares and scatter its remains everywhere, which would hardly be  _my_ fault," Pitch retorted.

"Right, sure. It's sand, Pitch. It might have spooky supernatural stuff to it, but it's still sand. And believe me, that stuff gets everywhere. I've been some of the beaches up in Alaska and I swear every time I go there I end up with sand in my underwear and man is it uncomforta-"

Pitch made a highly displeased sound and held up his hand to gesture Jack to stop. "The state of your undergarments is not something I ever want hear about, understood?"

"Alright, alright…" Jack shrugged and took another bite of the sandwich. Halfway through chewing it, he opened his mouth to ask, "So, howzit going?"

Pitch sighed and raised one hand to rub his temple. "I don't even eat food and I know you're not supposed to talk with your mouth full. Aren't you supposed to be a  _good_  role model for children?"

"Pfft." Jack half-laughed through his teeth, spraying crumbs that Pitch hastily sidestepped. He shook his head and swallowed. "You're not talking to the Guardian of Manners, bud. Besides, you should be happy. I'm eating our sandwich."

"Our? I've made it quite clear that I am never consuming anything you ever give me again, Jack," Pitch replied, narrowing his eyes.

"Oh, I'm not talking about sharing. This here, you see, is peanut butter and jelly," Jack declared, gesturing to the half-eaten sandwich grandly.

Pitch stared blankly at Jack for a moment. "You crashed and hit your head too hard snowboarding again, didn't you?"

"Oh, come on! PB & J? Pitch Black and Jack?" the guardian explained.

"...You're an idiot."

"No, it's a great metaphor. It's a portable, versatile sandwich, packed with energy. The flavors contrast well, enhancing each other but preventing either from being overpowering. Plus, kids love it."

Pitch made an affronted noise. "Children do not love me. They  _fear_  me."

"Of course they do. That's why some of the kids I play with say that Halloween is their favorite holiday, even over Christmas. Because they're absolutely petrified of you."

Pitch's eyes lit up at that, and he stood up straighter. "More than Christmas? Really?"

"Well, I mean, not all of them do, but yeah, a handful."

"Ahahaha!" Pitch cackled, pointing a finger triumphantly northwards. "Take  _that,_  fat man!"

"Yes, congratulations on this latest victory against the Guardians. Keep up the g… bad work," Jack deadpanned.

"Oh, I fully intend to," Pitch replied with a smirk. "So tell me then, what's the bread represent in that metaphor of yours?"

"Bread? …Uh… I dunno. Never thought about it. Snow?" Jack replied, tossing the last bite of sandwich up into the air and catching it in his mouth.

"It's always snow with you, isn't it?"

"Hey, it's what I do," Jack replied, his mouth full again. "If y'want, the crust can be Nightmares."

"Now you're just mangling the poor metaphor, and it wasn't in very good shape to begin with," Pitch said, shaking his head. "I don't know how you even come up with these things."

"Hey, flying around instead of teleporting everywhere means that I get a lot of thinking time. I've thought about lots of things!"

"I don't think I even want to kn-" Pitch started, but Jack cut him off.

"Like, I was wondering if people ever thought that I stole your eyebrows."

"…Excuse me?"

"Well, because I've got light hair, right? But my eyebrows are dark. And you've got dark hair, but no eyebrows at all. I wonder who got my eyebrows, then."

"Why do I let myself be dragged into these conversations…" Pitch groaned exasperatedly, rolling his eyes. "Maybe they went to whoever took Toothiana's, then. The fairy doesn't have any eyebrows either."

Jack paused for a moment, seeming to mull that over. "Huh. She doesn't, does she? She's got feathers, though."

Pitch shrugged. "They don't count, they're not separate, or even different coloured. Either she has no eyebrows, or she has one very impressive unibrow."

"I'll let her know you think so."

Pitch waved a hand dismissively. "Feel free. I have much more unflattering opinions of the fairy than that, it's not like it should come as any surprise."

Jack snorted. "Though if there is some kind of eyebrow thief running around, that'd be one heck of a fashion statement, wouldn't it? Snow white hair interspersed with rainbow-coloured feathers?"

"They'd certainly stand out, wouldn't they?"

"I wonder if that means that they'd have all the Baby Teeth's eyebrows as well. Man, they'd just be covered in feathers."

"Heh," Pitch let out a short, amused breath, then coughed. He stood up straight again and clasped his hands behind his back. "Yes, well, as stimulating and intellectual as this conversation is, night is falling and I have duties to attend to. If I could ask you to cease making my home a pigsty in the future?"

"I think we both know that's a lost cause there, buddy," Jack replied cheekily. "Can't stop me from doing what I do, you know. I'm a force of nature. Literally."

"Oh, how very clever. You should write that one down," Pitch deadpanned.

"Naw, I do my best work off the cuff," Jack replied with a grin.

Pitch smiled tightly. "I'll be off, then, before I am tempted to cuff  _you_."

"Threats are the last resort of a man with nothing clever to say," Jack replied snootily, tilting his head up. Then he grinned and fluttered his fingers in farewell, and a gust of wind blew him up into the air and quickly out of sight, leaving Pitch to mutter grumpily to himself.


	70. Dream

Jack didn't sleep very often, but a couple of years ago he found out that Sandy's cloud was the most comfortable thing in the world. He was surprised that Sandy got any work done on the thing, really. It was the best napping location ever. The guaranteed sweet dreams were a plus, too.

So when Jack felt a bit sleepy, he'd tend to track down Sandy, wherever he was, and lounge on the cloud with him for a while. The silent Guardian was a surprisingly good conversationalist, and he always made Jack feel welcome. Sandy's presence was like a warm, fluffy blanket wrapped around him, making him feel safe and comfortable and sleepy. It wasn't Jack's normal state of being, certainly, but it was nice every once in a while.

One night of many others found Jack lounging on the sand cloud, leaning back on his arms with his feet dangling over open air. Below them, the twinkling streetlights and headlights of the city blended with the glitter of the dreamsand snaking its way down to the sleepers below. Jack smiled lazily at the sight, letting out a satisfied breath. "We're lucky, aren't we? We've got the best job in the world."

Sandy grinned and nodded, dreamsand images flickering over his head.

"Yeah, I had a great day today, thanks for asking! Snow days all over the states this time of the year, and there was this great kid over in Winnipeg who's planning on being an Olympic speed skater. I think he's got what it takes, too, because he gave me a run for my money, and I've got a good couple centuries of experience over him."

Sandy's smile took on a lopsided angle, and an image of Jack with a long beard, clutching a cane, formed over his head.

"I am not just getting old, Sandy!" Jack laughed, giving the dreamweaver a playful shove. "I'm just as spry and lively as I was two hundred years ago, whippersnapper!"

Sandy ducked his head and raised his hands in surrender. The image melted into one of a pile of pillows and blankets.

"Yeah, I suppose it is bedtime for me." Jack flopped back onto the soft sand. He sighed and rolled onto his side, eyelids falling closed. "G'night, Sandy."

The sandman smiled and sent down a few more tendrils of dreamsand down to the city below them, bringing sweet dreams and restful slumber to all the children under his watch.

It was a short while later that Sandy turned to see what dreams his visitor was enjoying. A dreamsand Jack danced over the waves on a shore, gliding over the patches of ice that formed under his feet while the other Guardians splashed and played in the surf below. A cute idea, Sandy didn't know that Jack liked the beach.

Suddenly a large, jagged fin broke through the waves and arrowed for the group. Sandy blinked. A shark? But his dreams were always good…

The creature suddenly surged out of the water and crashed into the dream Bunnymund, knocking him over. Once the splash cleared away, there was a dreamsand Pitch standing in the water, grinning and with a fin strapped to his back. The dream Bunnymund, drenched, got up and splashed the boogeyman in retaliation. The rest of the group joined in, and soon the dream was a blur of water and laughter.

Sandy paused for a moment, surprised. He'd never seen Pitch featured in a good dream before, ever. The boogeyman would probably be highly offended if he knew about that, actually. Sandy silently laughed a bit at that thought.

It was very interesting how Jack, the biggest troublemaker out of all the Guardians, was also the one who acted the peacemaker so well. He wasn't sure that this dream would ever come true, but Sandy  _was_  supposed to encourage people to pursue the impossible. Maybe some day they all could get along, strange as that idea might be.

The dreamsand Pitch seemed to notice the scrutiny and raised his head to look up at the Sandman. He glared and made a rude gesture before returning his attention back to the dream.

Sandy smiled and shook his head. Dream version or not, it seemed like Pitch was still Pitch.


	71. Branching Out

Jack was setting up a storm for a snow day over Seattle when suddenly the shadows around him grew noticably darker, twisting into grotesque shapes and patterns. "Jack, I believe it's time that you and I work together again..." A soft voice whispered in Jack's ear as he felt an ominous presence loom behind him.

Jack rolled his eyes, beyond the point of being impressed by the boogeyman's theatrics anymore. "What for, Pitch?"

"To annoy the rabbit. Or the fairy. Or any of the Guardians, I don't particularly care. It's been  _months_  since I've caused them any grief; I think they're getting complacent."

"I'm sure you have better things to do with your time than obsess over something like that," Jack replied.

"You don't understand. As their nemesis it's my solemn duty to keep them on their toes," Pitch said, stepping out of the shadows next to Jack.

"Look, I know you hate the Guardians and everything, but I really think you need to look at the big picture here," Jack said.

Pitch's eyes narrowed. "Oh?" he hissed. "And just what would that 'big picture' be, Frost?"

"That there's an entire  _world_ of spirits out there just waiting for us. There's no reason why we should limit our mischief to the Guardians," Jack said, gesturing grandly around them.

Pitch paused for a moment at that, then a slow grin crept over his face. "I never thought I'd say this, but you're completely right, Jack."

"Ah, Pitch, you can admit it. I am a genius," Jack replied with a cocky smirk.

The boogeyman snorted. "Yeah, that's pushing it. But you do have very rare flashes of brilliance, and this was one of them. What are we waiting for?"

"Absolutely nothing. I've got a great plan already!"

* * *

Groundhog Day might not be as big and ostententatious an event as Easter or Christmas, but it was an important holiday nonethless. It had an entire movie about it, for pete's sake! It wasn't fair that some people overlooked it or blew it off.

The Groundhog worked hard on his predictions and he really thought he should be taken more seriously. He was the harbringer of spring, after all! But no. Everyone got all worked up over the Easter Bunny and his dumb eggs.

But, disgruntled or not, another Groundhog Day was upon him and it was his time to shine.

He smoothed down his fur and clambered out of his burrow, ready to make the proclamation. As he emerged, though, he was definitely  _not_  expecting his shadow to suddenly warp and twist and sprout razor sharp fangs and claws as it hissed and turned on him. With a startled yelp that was definitely not staged this time, the Groundhog scrambled backwards and fled back into his burrow, indicating the winter would extend for six more weeks.

Watching from afar, Jack whooped with laughter and applauded. "That was great, Pitch. A masterpiece."

Pitch smiled thinly. "Of course it was. I don't know why you would expect any less from me. I'm just surprised you would be so devious."

"Devious, me? Whatever gave you that impression?" Jack asked with a wicked grin. "This is all in good fun, Pitch."

"And I'm sure getting six more weeks of winter didn't have any bearing on your plan for this prank in the least, did it?" Pitch asked.

Jack gasped, aghast. "Of course not! I am offended that you would imply such a thing! So untrusting!"

"Ah, yes, that's me. Suspicious old boogeyman, seeing hidden agendas where there are none. Of course such a paragon of morality would balk at the thought of using his friend's abilities for personal gain, isn't that right?" Pitch shot back, inspecting his fingernails.

"That's right!" Jack said, and grinned. "And if you try to tell people otherwise, they'll never believe you."

* * *

"So, you can make them fall asleep, right?" Jack asked as they flitted their way to their next victims.

"Of course. I might not be as adept at invoking deep slumber as the sandman, but I can manage unconciousness, thank you," Pitch replied haughtily. "Or, if you'd prefer, I'm quite handy at sleep paralysis. If you'd like them to be unable to move and experiencing incredibly vivid and disturbing hallucinations?"

"Uh... Yeah, let's just stick with asleep, alright?" Jack replied, wrinkling his nose.

Pitch sighed and shrugged. "Suit yourself."

* * *

Father Time was incredibly unimpressed when he woke up from a nightmare of all his clocks starting to run backwards to find out that someone had shaved off his long white beard.

He was even less impressed to find out that it had been glued onto Baby New Year.

* * *

Sneaking into the Leprechaun's domain was easy, with Pitch's particular set of talents.

Jack stood overlooking the rolling, emerald green fields of shamrocks and smiled. "Green, green, green. Always that one shade. It's gotta get boring after a while, don't you think?" he asked.

"Oh, most definitely. This place is in serious need of some redecorating, I think," Pitch replied with a nod.

"I think white will make a very nice contrast..." Jack glanced sidelong at the boogeyman. "You think you can clear out the area for me? Send the clover somewhere else for a little bit?"

Pitch paused. "Why not just dump snow on top of it? They aren't large obstructions."

"Hey, I don't want to kill all the plants. That'd be mean. Just teleport them like, onto another hill for now, and I'll take care of the rest."

"If you insist," Pitch said, rolling his eyes, but he waved his hands and shadows enveloped the field, leaving behind a canvas of bare earth for Jack Frost to work on.

The glittering fields of frost blossoms were actually quite beautiful, really, but the Leprechaun didn't seem to have much appreciation for it, judging from the very colourful language reaching Jack and Pitch's ears as they lurked outside the domain and tried to stifle their laughter.

* * *

North was surprised when there was a sudden knocking on the doors of the Workshop. He opened up the doors to reveal an array of disgruntled-looking spirits. He paused for a moment, confused, and finally managed to smile welcomingly. "Friends, hello! What can I do for you?"

"You can rein in your hellions, is what you can do," the Groundhog grumbled irritably.

"Hellions?"

"Jack Frost and the boogeyman. They're  _your_  problems, not ours. Keep them under control, would you?"

North blinked. "Ah. Jack is getting back on Naughty List, I see. I will have talk with him." He wasn't sure how effective the talk would be, but he supposed he could always try to lay all the blame on Pitch if it failed.


	72. Bedrest

Jack swooped into the lair with a gleeful whoop, doing a double somersault before landing on the stone near the boogeyman, grinning. "Pitch, you'll never guess... Wow, you look  _awful_."

Pitch glared at him. "How kind of you to point tha- ah- ACHOO!" He sneezed violently into his hands, practically taken off his feet by the force of it.

"I didn't think you  _could_ get sick," Jack said in surprise.

"I can't," Pitch rasped, his voice hoarse and scratchy. He sniffled and blew his nose into a hankerchief made of shadows. "Or at least, I normally can't. However, I  _might_  have gotten caught trespassing in Pestilence's domain. She didn't take it well."

"Pestilence... You mean one of the Four Horsemen?" Jack gasped. "Of the  _apocalypse_? Why would you go anywhere near them?"

"Well of course it was all part of an elaborate and devious plan to-" Pitch started to say, but stopped to wince and clutch at his temples. "Nnnnh. My head is  _throbbing_. Humans go through this seasonally?"

"I think you wound up with a pretty killer cold there. Probably not something everyone has to deal with regularly. You were saying something about a nefarious plot?" Jack prompted, shamelessly taking advantage of Pitch's weakened state.

"Oh, right, yes, I wanted to see if there was a prank we could pull off on them," Pitch said dismissively, waving a hand, apparently too occupied with his suffering to come up with a story to paint himself in a more villainous light.

Jack paused for a second at that. "You... you're being serious. Pranking the harbringers of the apocalypse?" Jack whistled. "Man, I thought it was just with the Guardians but you really do have a habit of biting off more than you can chew, don't you?"

"Apparently," Pitch hissed through his teeth. "It could have been worse, really. She could have given me the  _plague_  instead of a common cold."

"That's my boy! Always looking on the bright side of things," Jack teased with a grin.

"I prefer to think of it as the dark side of things, but we're arguing semantics at this point," Pitch grumbled. He suddenly swayed and a Hellhound that appeared in a swirl of black sand was the only thing that kept him from toppling over. He leaned against the beast heavily.

Jack winced. "Sorry, though. I didn't know you were feeling so poorly. I didn't mean to pester you when you were sick. I'll let you rest-" Pitch hurriedly grabbed him by the sleeve, stopping him from floating off.

"Stay," Pitch said quietly. "Please."

Jack blinked in surprise. "Wow, you are  _really_  ill, aren't you?"

An expression of sudden horror flashed across Pitch's face and he snatched his hand back from Jack's hoodie as if it had burned him. "I'm running a fever. I can't be held responsible for what I might say in my delirium," he muttered, locking his hands behind his back. "Go. Sod off. Frolic, or whatever it is that you do."

"Nope! You asked for me to stay, nicely even, so now you're stuck with me!" Jack replied with a grin, slinging an arm over Pitch's shoulders.

"Don't touch me," Pitch muttered, plucking the hand off of his shoulder like it was something distasteful. "And if I knew that the word 'please' was the key to getting you to do things, I would have used it in Antarctica."

"Please and thank you will get you a long way, but I don't think they'll get you that far, Pitch," Jack replied easily. He reached out when Pitch swayed on his feet again, but was brought up short by the absolutely venomous glare that was leveled at him. "Yeah, you really shouldn't be on your feet right now," Jack said, letting his hand drop to his side. "Do you have a bed or something?"

Pitch thought about this for a moment. "Aside from the bedframe at the entrance? Maybe..."

"Maybe? Aren't you the monster under the bed?"

Pitch rolled his eyes. "I don't need to sleep, and there's no point to lurking under a bed if there's no one on top of it. I don't have any  _reason_  to have a bed in my lair. But I might have something close," he clicked his tongue and a Nightmare came trotting out of the shadows. Pitch flopped over its back, too miserable to mount up properly, and the creature trotted off, Jack trailing behind it.

They eventually came to a wide gallery, and scattered everywhere were piles of objects. Junk, really. As far as Jack could tell there was everything from broken-toothed combs and frayed socks to rusted car parts and old computer monitors. Hellhounds were rummaging and snuffling through the heaps of items. "What's this?" Jack asked, curious.

"Old things. Lost things. Forgotten things. Objects tainted with fear and dread and decay. They fall through the cracks of the world and end up here, eventually. I use them as set-pieces, or to spark new ideas for terrors," Pitch replied tiredly, his voice muffled due to the fact that his face was still pressed against the Nightmare's flank.

"Huh."

One of the Hellhounds seemed to find what it was looking for, and dragged out a tattered mattress from the bottom of one of the piles, sending the other items toppling over with a loud clatter. One of the corners of the mattress looked like it had been sliced clean off by something, and the bottom of it was liberally splashed with blue paint, but it was dragged over anyway. Pitch slid bonelessly from the Nightmare onto the mattress, sprawling out on his back. He blinked up at Jack. "You were right. This is better."

Jack bit his lip to stop himself from saying that they should really go up to North's or something, where there were proper beds and food and ventilation, because  _this_  was a sad state of affairs. But Pitch would not take that well, and besides, he was in no shape to be flown up north and Jack didn't trust the boogeyman to teleport them when he was this loopy. "Do you at least have some blankets?"

Pitch muttered something indecipherable and nightmare sand flowed over top of him, forming something resembling a comforter. But when he closed his eyes, the sand suddenly shivered and lost its shape, grains falling and scattering apart. "Mnnngh," Pitch grumbled irritably, not even bothering to open his eyes.

"Yeah... I'll, uh, be right back," Jack said.

"Nnnnh," was the only response he got as the boogeyman rolled on his side and curled up.

Jack came back with a generous armful of sheets and blankets, and a small bag. The Hellhounds that had been searching through the junk before were now gathered around Pitch, and dozens of red-glowing eyes followed him as he approached. Jack smiled carefully. "Good dogs..." he murmured, holding his staff a bit tighter as he hopped over the beasts and to where Pitch lay. He wasn't immediately beset by fangs and claws, which he thought was a good sign.

Jack dumped the blankets on top of Pitch, which made the boogeyman crack open one eye momentarily before he pulled the material around himself, beyond caring about the bright colours and patterns on them. Jack crouched down, set his staff aside, and rummaged in the bag. "Hey, Pitch, I need you to sit up for a bit."

"No. Go away," Pitch grumbled.

"Oh, come on-" Behind him, Jack heard a growl and felt a hot gust of fetid breath against the back of his neck. He froze. "Uh, Pitch?"

The boogeyman only curled up tighter in the blankets, and Jack heard more Hellhounds gathering behind him. He mentally calculated his chances of lunging for his staff and fighting all the things off unscathed. They weren't very good. A little spike of panic lanced through him.

Pitch sighed happily, then suddenly flinched and jerked up into a sitting position, eyes snapping open. "Wha- Oh." He fixed his eyes on the hounds and frowned. "No. You know better than that. Bad."

Jack relaxed when the beasts whined and left. He pulled out a spoon and poured some cough syrup onto it. "Thanks for that. Now, here, swallow this."

Pitch looked at the syrup, then back to Jack. "I can get the Hellhounds to come back, you know."

"Don't be like that. This should make you feel better," Jack replied, jiggling the spoon. "Come on."

Pitch muttered something under his breath and took the spoon out of Jack's hands. He swallowed the medicine and grimaced. "That is absolutely  _vile_!" he croaked.

"Yeah, I don't think it's actually possible to make cold medicine that doesn't taste awful," Jack replied with a shrug.

"I hate you," Pitch growled. He thrust the spoon back into Jack's hand and flopped back on the mattress, burrowing into the covers and turning so that his back was to the Guardian.

* * *

Pitch woke up feeling a hundred times better than he had before he fell asleep. He yawned and shifted, not willing to open his eyes yet. He became vaguely aware that he had his arms wrapped around something soft, hugging it to his chest.

"I didn't know you were a cuddler, Pitch," he heard Jack say.

Pitch's eyes snapped open and fixed on the fluffy black teddy bear that was nestled in his arms. He screeched and flung the thing away.

Jack howled with laughter. "Oh man, I'm sorry, I just couldn't resist," he gasped out as Pitch sat bolt upright and glared poisonously at him.

"I am going to murder you," he snarled. "Slowly and painfully. And leave your body on a  _spike_  outside of the lair as a warning to the others."

Jack beamed. "Ah, you're feeling well enough to make death threats! That's great! I think you're all better, then."

The wind whisked the Guardian out of the lair just as Pitch surged to his feet, shedding floral-printed blankets, and hurled nightmare sand at the pale youth. Bright laughter echoed through the cavern in counterpoint to the scream of rage.


	73. All Hallow's Eve

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy Halloween!

The Guardians might favour the little children, young ones too naïve and full of  _hope_ and  _wonder_  to think to question the existence of magical rabbits and enamel-obsessed fairies, but Pitch had found that the ideal ages of his victims tended more towards the teens. Old enough to be aware of some of the terrors of the world, but not yet mired in the dull, disbelieving fog of adulthood. Filled to the brim with anxiety and confusion and uncertainty, trapped in bodies that were changing and growing in strange and alarming ways, teetering on the knife's edge between childhood and maturity. Such chaotic, desperate,  _scared_  creatures, it was really no wonder that Pitch was drawn to them. He might not be the monster under the bed to them anymore, but there were plenty of roles that he could fill, urban legends and monsters of folklore, or just that creeping sense that there was  _something_  out there in the darkness, just out of sight.

Oh, and not to mention that they were foolhardy enough to go on the most  _entertaining_  excursions.

When October rolled around, and the nights started getting longer and darker as the temperature began to drop, all manner of thrill seeking teenagers would venture out into the night, eager to prove themselves fearless.

And Pitch was more than happy to prove them wrong.

It was great fun to join in on one of the urban legend games that involved inviting otherworldly spirits to take part. And it was so considerate of them to think of him, as well. It would be rude to turn down such a request. Joining in on a circle of people telling scary stories around a campfire or in a graveyard was another diversion he found very enjoyable.

Urban exploration, though, had to be one of his favorite activities to happen upon. When intrepid youths would venture into foreboding, long-abandoned structures, armed with nothing more than their wits, some flashlights, and maybe a set of bolt cutters, that was something he took great joy in.

He liked enclosed, claustrophobic spaces, shielded from the watchful eye of the moon. It was so convenient when his prey would willingly wander into his territory.

Single explorers were interesting; he would tend to make a game out of how long he could draw out their uncertainty of whether or not their mind was playing tricks on them. Making people question the nature of reality and what they do and do not know was one of his primary purposes, after all. It was gratifying to see someone's courage be slowly worn down by nothing more than half glimpsed visions of unnatural creatures and barely audible whispers and groans. He liked to think he'd made an art form of reaching a person's very breaking point before finally revealing a horror that would send them fleeing in abject, mindless terror.

Groups of people, though, were harder to scare outright. Too many variables, too much of a chance of one of them doing something to ruin the moment, and Pitch was nothing if not a showman. Everything had to be carefully done to create the most terrifying experience he could produce. He would settle for nothing but the best.

And oh, Pitch had his ways around the group issue. All he had to do was wait in the shadows for everyone else to turn their backs on one of their companions, and quick as a blink, he would drag the unwatched person into the shadows.

Sometimes he would linger long enough to let them scream before vanishing, other times he would see how long it took the group to notice one of their number was missing.

The kidnapped teen was auxillary to his goal; usually he would just move them to a part of the building that was too far away for their friends to find them easily. Then vanish back into the darkness with a parting chuckle or a whisper of "Don't worry, I'll be back soon…"

Cell phones, he decided, were one of the more entertaining inventions of this century. It was so very  _easy_  for him to relieve his distracted captive of their phone and use it to contact the others. So many options from there.

He could go with a short and simple text of 'help me'.

Or call one of them up and let them hear any number of disturbing noises, from static and garbled white noise to choked off, gurgling gasps to inhuman shrieking to a casual threat like "One down, six to go…"

Mimicry was only one of his  _many_  talents, after all.

Sending pictures or videos of the lone, scared teenager, with disturbing shadows visible behind them, was another tempting option, with the added spice of the fear of  _if they're alone, who is taking the picture?_

If they ran screaming from the area at that point, which, disappointingly, some groups did, he would let them go. Scaring and scarring were two different things, after all. He was even gentleman enough to lead the abandoned teen back to the exit as well. Or, well, chase them to it. Same difference, really.

The ones that stayed, those he treated to the full experience. Generally he would wait until the possibility of someone human messing with them was brought up before he brought out the blatant shifting shadows and monsters. Before then, he let the oppressive gloom and unsettling noises of the area play on the fears of the group as he started picking off more of their members.

Whittling down the numbers deprived his playmates of their illusions of safety, increased their worries for their friends, and heightened their sense of vulnerability and impending doom. All a feast to Pitch's senses.

He would let them catch a glimpse of himself down one shadowy hallway, or spook them down a pathway to draw them to more cramped or frightening areas of the structure.

And the less he let them see and know about what they were up against, the more their own imaginations did the heavy lifting for him. It was always so fascinating to see what they came up with to frighten themselves with.

Impersonating one of the missing group members was one of his favorite tricks. It was so easy to plant ideas or doubts into their minds, and to feel more personally involved in the terror. And to destroy their faith in one another in one fell swoop by cackling and vanishing, to feel that last line of security vanish, that was a treat.

Though, sadly, he had to play that card sparingly if the group was more on the fight end of the fight-or-flight spectrum; having to intercede to prevent the teens from harming one another tended to ruin the game.

Sometimes, if he was feeling generous, or if a particularly ingenious plan was devised by one of the group members, he might let them 'win', find their missing friends, maybe even defeat one of his minions. After all, he wanted tales to spread, to encourage more people to come play with him, and people were more likely to talk about experiences that painted themselves in a positive light, instead of ones that ended with them in disgrace.

Most of the time, though, the group would break and flee the area. Or be entirely separated, after which Pitch would decide that he had won this round and show them the exit, in his own particular way.

Almost any nighttime excursion could end up with Pitch joining in, really. Perhaps individuals and groups might want to consider just what sort of activities they have planned, this Halloween.


	74. Avalanche

Jack loved ski hills. The breathtaking mountain views, the crisp winter air, the satisfying _shhfff_ sounds of edges cutting through snow, the snow sparkling in the sunlight and the bright sounds of enjoyment and exhilaration ringing through the air.

He'd managed to get Baby Tooth off duty for a few hours and, after bundling her up in a tiny scarf and set of mittens, the both of them gallivanted off to a ski resort to have some fun.

Jack brought with him a sudden flurry of deep, soft, fluffy powder, the perfect kind for carving into and the stuff that billowed up in satisfying white gouts when people screeched to a stop in it. After Jack set the snow down, he leapt into action, and Baby Tooth and he spent most of the day racing their believers and making new friends.

It was hours later that he realized that he might have been a _little_ too enthusiastic in providing the hill with enough snow to have the best ski day ever. The out-of-bounds areas, where there was no patrol around to ensure the stability of the snowpack, were getting inundated with the fresh powder and it was only a matter of time before something gave way. Jack could already sense the strain that the snow layers were being put under. There would be one doozy of an avalanche coming up, and soon.

That was alright, though. It was far away enough from the ski hill that no one would be caught in it, and the animals in the area had picked up on the threat as well and had headed to safer ground. All that would happen would be a pretty spectacular show of winter's might, and Jack was more than alright with that. In fact, he was already working on ideas for how he might be able to make the spectacle even more showy. If he got enough ice crystals in the air, he might be able to make an ice rainbow show up, that would be neat… Jack eyed the slope appraisingly before turning to ask Baby Tooth what she thought about the idea.

Jack was stopped abruptly by the sound of laughter. Normally, that would be music to his ears, but this noise made his blood run cold. This sound came from the out-of-bounds side of the mountain. From directly below the cliff face that he had been considering, the one whose snowpack he could feel creak in his very bones.

"No. No no no no no…" Jack gasped, diving out of the air like a bolt of lightning. Within seconds he had made it to the slope where a group of seven young teenagers were carving gleefully into virgin powder and calling out to one another to 'check this trick out'!

Jack plunged into their midst desperately, hoping fervently that at least one of them could see him. _Oh please oh please let them see him please they needed to get out NOW!_ "Hey!" he tried.

One of the teens, a girl, pulled up short to grin at the Guardian. "Jack Frost? Here to join in?" she asked brightly.

Jack clamped down on the sense of relief, he couldn't afford to relax until after everyone got out unscathed. "No. Listen, you have to get out of here, now! The whole slope is about to-"

There was a sudden, low, rumbling _creak_ from above them, and Jack could feel the snow start to shift, fissures already forming beneath the surface of the layers. The bottom dropped out of his stomach. They had _seconds_ before tons of snow and ice was going to come hurtling down the mountain.

"Baby Tooth! Get them out of here!" Jack yelled before he took off, blazing up the unstable slope. Time, time, he had to buy time! He reached the area where the stress on the snow made his teeth _ache_ with pressure and slammed his staff into the snowpack. Ice exploded outwards from the point, racing over the snow and forming a sort of bracing wall against the snow that was groaning its need to crash and rush and charge down the slope, to vent the pressure that dragged relentlessly at it.

_Not yet!_ Jack thought desperately, gritting his teeth.

The wall couldn't last long, but it was all he had right now. Jack poured more energy into the barrier, making the temperature all around him drop like a rock in a sudden cold snap. He focused all his will into one single point, _forbidding_ the snow to move any further. After what felt like hours, but couldn't have been more than a few minutes, of struggling with the penned force of the avalanche, he felt the pressure subside to a point where it didn't feel as though his eardrums were about to burst. He allowed himself to heave a sigh, still holding the snow back against the relentless drag of gravity.

"My, quite the mess you've gotten into this time, isn't it?" a soft voice asked from beside him.

Jack jerked in surprise, and felt the snow shift treacherously as his attention wavered. He clamped down hard on the stuff, the temperature dropping further. "Pitch! What… why are you here?"

Pitch, standing in the shadow of a tall, spindly fir tree, snorted. "Please. With the sheer amount mortal terror of a group of children and the desperate panic of a Guardian, how could I stay away?" Despite the fact that it had to be colder than negative forty degrees around Jack, the boogeyman's breath didn't so much as steam. He shifted his gaze to the wall that held back the avalanche, seeming to size it up. "Rulebreakers aren't always such a good thing, are they, Jack?"

"If you've just come to yak at me…" Jack ground out through clenched teeth.

Pitch clicked his tongue in thought. "Oh, right, silly me. The brats are out of harm's way, now. They'll be having nightmares about getting buried in snow for a while yet, but maybe that will keep them on the monitored slopes, hmm?"

And as if in confirmation, Baby Tooth suddenly came whirring up the slope, peeping her good news. She faltered at the sight of Pitch, but zipped up to Jack all the same, gesturing animatedly to get the point across. The teens had made it to safety.

Jack managed a smile. "Good, they're safe, that's-"

There was a thunder-loud cracking noise, and a roar like the sound of some colossal, primodial beast. The stone cliff face above them had been weakened by the sudden drops in temperature, and a huge slab of it sheared off and came crashing down into the waiting snowpack that Jack had been holding back. The new surge of force served to smash through Jack's wall as though it was nothing.

"Time to go!" Pitch snapped, grabbing Jack and vanishing into the shadows an instant before the wall of snow and stone crashed over them.

"No! Baby Tooth!" Jack gasped as he opened his eyes back in Pitch's lair. He whirled on the boogeyman, grabbing the wrist of the hand that was wrapped around his upper arm. "Send me back! Send me back now!"

Pitch looked down his nose at the Guardian. "You would do well to save your worry for things that are actually significant."

Jack shoved Pitch, hard. Frost and ice flared out from where he made contact, crusting over the boogeyman's robes and racing over his skin. "She's my _friend!_ " he yelled.

Pitch was knocked back a step by the shove, releasing Jack's arm. He blinked, then rolled his eyes and thrust out his other hand, palm up and closed around something. He uncurled his fingers to reveal a brilliant splash of turquoise huddled in the center of his palm. The second she was released, Baby Tooth zipped behind Jack and chattered angrily at the boogeyman from the shelter of his frost-tinged hood.

Jack took a moment to respond, mouth hanging open for a second before he managed to sputter out, "You saved her too?"

Pitch snorted. "Don't misunderstand. I wouldn't care one whit if the little flying vermin was squashed flat as a pancake." At that, Baby Tooth shook her fist at him, and Pitch responded with a wide smile that showed off all his jagged teeth. "I simply knew that you would insist on going back and risking your neck if I left her behind. So I decided on the path of least resistance. Seems like I could have saved the effort, though," he finished, dropping his gaze down to his flash-frozen clothes.

Jack winced, the adrenaline and desperation draining out of him now, leaving him feeling shaky and limp. "Sorry. I… Thank you." He gave Baby Tooth a nudge with one finger, encouraging her to say something as well. The little fairy let out a 'hmph' sound, crossed her arms, and turned her back on the boogeyman, nose in the air. "Baby Tooth…" Jack began, but Pitch cut him off.

"She's got the right idea, Jack. If you think that I do anything out of the kindness of my heart, you're more foolish than I thought," Pitch drawled. He paused for a moment, cocking his head in consideration. "Though having one of Toothiana's little followers indebted to me would present an enticing opportunity…"

Baby Tooth turned her head just enough to blow a raspberry at the boogeyman.

"Well, thank you for that _stimulating_ addition to the conversation," Pitch replied, eyes narrowing. "I do believe the two of you have overstayed your welcome. You can go now."

Jack hesitated for a second, then sighed. "Yeah, alright. C'mon, Baby Tooth. Let's get you home." Jack turned to go. "Catch you later, Pitch!" he called back before the both of them zipped out of the lair.

"Until next time, brat," Pitch replied, watching the Guardian go.


	75. Curiosity

It was on one of the many, many days that Jack had pestered Pitch to the point of murderous rage. He was zipping along on the wind with the boogeyman hot on his heels, roaring dire threats. And all at once the Guardian was struck by a sudden rush of curiosity.

Pitch was very good at chasing people and being terrifying while doing it; that was a large portion of his job, after all. Actually _catching_ people, though, that was another story. The chase really seemed to be the whole point with him. Especially when Jack was involved, which generally ended with him making a clean getaway or brawling with the Nightmare King until both of them were breathless and the aggression had bled away with their energy. Actually carrying out his threats wasn’t a strong suit of Pitch’s, really.

So just how would Pitch react if he called the boogeyman’s bluff?

Jack suddenly stopped in his flight and dropped to the ground, whirling around to face Pitch. The boogeyman’s eyes widened and he skidded to a halt before him, backpedaling and barely managing to avoid crashing into the Guardian.

“What now?" Pitch snapped, eyes narrowing.

Jack grinned and tilted his head back, exposing the pale line of his throat. "Alright, then, you caught me. Go on and do it." He drew one finger horizontally across his throat. "One little slice and I'll be out of your hair permanently..."

Pitch faltered, shock and uncertainty flashing over his face. For a long moment he seemed frozen in place, and the silence stretched on long enough for Jack to consider making a crack about being able to hear the gears grinding in Pitch's brain. But finally Pitch's gaze darted from Jack to his weapon, then back again, and his eyes narrowed. He flashed a threatening grin, swung back the scythe, and brought the blade forward in a glittering arc.

The razor edge stopped an inch away from Jack's throat, who hadn't so much as flinched, nor had his smile diminished in any way.

The grin dropped off of Pitch’s face. He snapped his gaze to his hands and tightened his grip on the scythe, seeming to be arguing with himself. After a moment, his shoulders slumped. With an irritated snarl, Pitch let the weapon dissolve and lowered his hands, glaring darkly at the beaming boy in front of him.

"Yeah, that's what I thought-" Jack was cut off in his triumphant declaration by Pitch suddenly stepping forward and driving both of his palms into Jack's chest, throwing him off balance. "Gah!" the Guardian exclaimed, arms pinwheeling. He fell backwards, and landed hard on his tailbone. "Ow, my butt!"

"Hah! That's what you get!" Pitch crowed victoriously, pointing at the Guardian.

"You're a jerk," Jack muttered from the floor. "And what are you, five? Pushing someone over, really?"

"Did you really think that I would be merciful enough to give you a quick death, Jack?" Pitch asked with a grin. He stalked closer and planted a foot on Jack's sternum, pressing him flat to the floor. "Oh no, I'm planning on drawing this out. You're going to be subjected to torment _everlasting_ , boy."

Jack cocked an eyebrow up at the Nightmare King. "Ah, yes, of course that would be the case, you heartless fiend. I should have known," he deadpanned.

"You really should have," Pitch agreed.

"I really think you're overestimating your abilities, though."

Pitch rolled his eyes. "Remind me again which one of us is flat on his back- AH!" Quick as a flash, Jack grabbed the foot that was still resting on his chest and gave it a twist, throwing Pitch off balance. The boogeyman flailed and tried to hop back on his free foot, only to find that there was a patch of ice that had at some point mysteriously appeared directly underneath it. With a curse, Pitch went down in a tangle of limbs and black cloth.

Jack chuckled and propped himself up on his elbows to watch as Pitch swore and struggled to untangle himself. "You," he replied with a sweet smile.

"Insufferable brat!" Pitch snarled back in response.

"Hey, you could have opted out. Instead you signed up for this. _Forever_ ," Jack taunted.

Pitch groaned and flopped back in defeat.


	76. Testing 1,2,3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wow guys, a year ago today I posted the first chapter of A Home for Fear (on ffn, it took me a while to shift it over here). I never thought the story would go on for so long, or that so many people would like it. Thank you, everyone. Your support means so much to me. Have some silly and fluffy things.

Jack's curiosity didn't subside at his first discovery. If anything, the knowledge that nothing he could do could provoke Pitch into outright murdering him only spurred his desire to learn more about the boogeyman. Or at least gave him the go-ahead to pester his friend relentlessly.

"So, what's up with this place anyway?" Jack asked one day, bouncing off a pillar of stone in the lair.

"It's where I live?" Pitch replied, eyeing Jack questioningly.

"Yeah, but I mean, where did you get it? Did you find it or make it or what?"

"Part of it was originally part of a natural cave system, a long time ago. Most of it, though, is a realm that existing on the fringes of reality, on the border of light and dark where the shadows lie. It's an extension of my own existence, the same as North's or Toothiana's garish messes."

"Huh. That's neat! So can you change the layout and stuff?"

There was a creaking noise above him, and Jack looked up. There, carved into an arch that didn't exist a moment ago, was a single word. ' _Yes'_. "Show off," Jack muttered.

Pitch smirked.

* * *

On another day, Jack found Pitch lurking in a dark corner of his lair, a scowl on his face and the shadows all around him bristling and shifting agitatedly. "Rough day?" he asked.

"I  _hate_  adults," Pitch hissed.

"Did they tell the kids you weren't real again?"

"Worse!" Pitch snapped, surging to his feet to pace back and forth, gesturing aggravatedly. "One of them got out this spray bottle of water that was supposed to be 'monster repellent', and-" he paused when Jack stepped right in his path, blocking him from moving forward. "What?"

"...Oh, nothing. Go on," Jack replied after a pause, moving out of the way again.

Pitch blinked, then got back on track again, picking up from where he left off. "She sprayed it under the bed and got water all over me! It was unbelievably rude, and this idea is getting passed around in that area-" Pitch was brought up short when Jack stepped back in his path. "What now?!" he snapped.

"You really are so dramatic that you need to be able to pace and flaunt and fidget to rant properly! Hah!" Jack replied with a laugh.

Pitch narrowed his eyes. "You are completely unsympathetic to my plight. Get out."

Gravity suddenly shifted underneath Jack's feet and he abruptly found himself outside the lair. He chuckled and shook his head.

* * *

"Hey, so what's your opinion on puns?" Jack asked, leaning against a cage.

"Puns?" Pitch repeated, cocking his head to one side.

"Yeah. I mean, come on boogeyman, you can't really be in the dark about those, can you?" Jack asked with a grin.

The corner of Pitch's mouth twitched. "I'm afraid I don't know what you're talking about."

"You can't be serious. Never heard of puns? Have you been living in a hole in the ground or something?"

"Oh, that was cold, Frost."

Jack's smile widened. "I like to think I'm pretty slick, personally."

"You'd better be careful not to slip up then."

"What, am I skating on thin ice already?" Jack asked.

"Oh yes. You're on a slippery slope now. All downhill from here."

"Mixing up skating and skiing, Pitch? I think you're experiencing a bit of brain-freeze now."

"Please, at least my rate of response isn't glacial," Pitch replied flippantly.

"That's snow way to do things, Pitch."

"Don't underestimate me, Jack. I could fill a whole sleet of paper with these."

"Got a real flurry of ideas, do you?"

"I can plow right through this," Pitch said with a shrug.

"It's too bad, I was expecting to blow you away."

"Don't forget that revenge is a dish best served cold."

"Planning to ice me now, Pitch?"

Pitch grinned toothily. "Oh, I think you can snowbank on the fact that the idea is never far from my mind."

"Ouch, such a chilly reception I'm getting."

"I'm cold-hearted, remember?"

"…I think you're dipping into your slush fund of puns now," Jack replied after a pause.

"You're getting pretty flaky yourself," Pitch retorted.

"I… Uh… Think fast!" Jack said, suddenly pulling a snowball out of thin air and whipping it at the boogeyman.

Pitch just managed to duck out of the way of the missile. "That was not a pun," he said flatly, straightening up.

"Hey, I'm a man of actions, not words!" Jack exclaimed.

"You just don't want to admit that you lost," Pitch replied with an infuriating smirk.

"I am the embodiment of winter! I get, like, two hundred extra points for that! You lost!"

"You are a  _child,_ " Pitch replied, rolling his eyes.

"No,  _you_  are a child."

"I am literally one of the oldest beings on the planet."

"That doesn't mean anything. You're still dumb," Jack muttered.

"At least I don't act like a petulant toddler when I'm bested."

"You completely do! You're like, the petulant-est!"

"Out of puns and now you can't even use actual words? I'm disappointed, Frost."

"Well, at least… at least my nose isn't giant!" Jack retorted.

"You're picking up arguing strategy from your charges, aren't you?"

"You're picking up living strategies from a jerk!"

"I never knew you were so competitive, Frost."

"I am not! Winter is my thing. I don't lose. You lost. I'm not listening to you anymore, big-nose." Jack grumbled, gripping his staff and getting lifted off his feet by the wind.

"Sure, whatever you say, Jack!" Pitch called at him with a cackle.

* * *

At some point the tests devolved into Jack simply peppering Pitch with questions.

"So, do you snore?"

"I don't sleep."

"What's your favorite color?"

"Do you really need to ask me that?"

"What's your robe made of anyway?"

"I'm going to ignore you now."

"Are you ticklish?"

"No."

"Are you lying?"

"No."

"I think you are," Jack replied, suddenly lunging forward to grab Pitch's sides.

Pitch didn't so much as twitch, staring down at Jack with an unimpressed expression. "Don't do that."

Jack frowned. "Alright, alright…" He let go of Pitch only to let his hand dart up to the boogeyman's armpit.

A growl was the only response. "What did I just say, Jack?"

Jack pulled back his hand and eyed Pitch's feet appraisingly.

"I  _will_  kick you."

Jack heaved a sigh and stepped back, hands held up disarmingly. Then sudden gust of wind lifted him off his feet and his hand shot out to draw over the side of Pitch's neck.

 _That_ got a reaction. "Ah!" Pitch jerked away from the touch, stumbling back a step.

"So what was that, Mr-I'm-Not-Ticklish?" Jack asked innocently.

"Your hands are cold!" Pitch protested, backing away with his hands clapped over his neck.

"Sure they are." Jack said with a wicked grin.


	77. Cinema

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Apologies for the delay. Exams and holidays are busy times.

"Hey, Pitch, what are you doing Wednesday night?" Jack asked, hanging upside down and peering into the darkened lair.

"The same thing I do every night, Jack. Spread dread, terror and misery wherever I go," Pitch replied with a sharp-toothed grin.

Jack rolled his eyes. "Well, you think you could leave that to your Nightmares for an evening? I have something planned that I'd like you to be there for."

"Oh? What sort of a plan?"

Jack smiled. "Telling you that would ruin the surprise, Pitch."

"I don't like surprises," the boogeyman replied flatly.

"Liar, liar, pants on fire," Jack chanted, as he swung down and landed on his feet next to Pitch. "You  _love_  surprises. You do 'em all the time. Jumping out of dark corners, making freaky noises happen in the middle of the night, grabbing at people's ankles..."

"Fine. I don't like being on the  _receiving end_  of surprises," Pitch corrected himself.

"Hmmm, well, would you rather be surprised or spend the rest of your existence always wondering what might have happened?"

Pitch snorted. "Please, Jack. As entertaining as some of your stunts can be, I assure you that, even if I did need to sleep, I wouldn't be losing any over not being privy to this particular one. They're all really very similar."

"Hey, I make  _awesome_  plans!" Jack protested.

"Yes, of course you do," Pitch said with an indulgent smile, as he patted the Guardian on the head. "Run along, now."

Jack glared at the boogeyman. "You're going to show up on Wednesday."

"Oh, will I?"

"Yep. Because I'm gonna paint flowers on all of your Nightmares if you don't."

Pitch stiffened. "You wouldn't."

Jack grinned. "You wanna try me, Pitch?"

Pitch gave the beaming brat a withering glare, which seemed to be completely ineffective. Finally he gritted his teeth and hissed, "Fine. But I'll remember this, Frost."

"Yes, yes, and your revenge will be ruthless and terrible to behold, I've heard the spiel before," Jack replied dismissively. He gave a mocking salute. "Alright, see you Wednesday!"

A rumbling growl was the only response as Jack headed back out into the winter night.

* * *

Pitch, grumbling, pulled himself out of the shadows of an empty parking lot. A flat, featureless wall of the nearby building faced the area, and several blankets were scattered over the frost-tinged asphalt. A medium-sized electronic device of some sort was also placed on the ground. Pitch stepped a little closer to examine it. A projector of some sort? It also had stickers all over it, Christmas trees and reindeer and candy canes. Jack must have gotten it from North.

"You made it!" A cheery voice and a gust of frigid air washed over Pitch.

He straightened up and glanced sidelong at Jack. "I said I would," he replied coldly. "What idiocy am I to be subjected to this time, Frost?"

"Yes, well, about that…"

Glittering ropes of dreamsand suddenly and Pitch found himself bound from shoulder to toe. "What?!" he exclaimed, twisting his head around to see the sandman and all the other Guardians approaching from around the corner of the building. He snapped his gaze back to Jack. " _Treachery_ ," he hissed, eyes narrowing.

"Relax, Pitch. It's just to stop you from running off. We're having a movie night!"

Pitch blinked at Jack. "You cannot be serious."

"Ah, quit your whining. Doing a couple normal things isn't going to kill you."

"Wanna bet?" Pitch growled.

Jack just rolled his eyes, grabbed the back of Pitch's robe, and tugged on it, forcing the boogeyman to sit down on one of the blankets. The other Guardians started settling in as well while Pitch proceeded to glare venomously at them all. Jack ignored him and took a tub of popcorn from Sandy. "Now, you're just going to escape, or kill me, if we untie your arms, but I can feed you some popcorn."

"Not if you want to keep all of your fingers you won't," Pitch growled, baring his teeth.

Jack shrugged. "Fine, more for me. So, what're we watching tonight, North?"

"I brought Christmas movies!" North said, shuffling through the stack of cases in his grip. "How about The Grinch… no, maybe it will give Pitch ideas, hey?" he said with a wink.

The boogeyman snarled wordlessly. A Nightmare lunged out of the shadows and snapped the disks right out of North's hands, before vanishing again. "Oh no. If I'm going to have to endure this ordeal, we are going to be watching a  _decent_  film."

An unmarked DVD dropped out of the night sky and into North's still-spread hands. He blinked and looked it over. "Horror movie?" he asked.

Pitch grinned. "What else would it be, North? You can relax though, unfortunately I still haven't managed to find a genuine movie that makes the watchers die after seven days."

"I didn't come here to be subjected to whatever twisted things  _he_  likes…" Bunnymund muttered.

"Ah, will be fine!" North replied, popping the disk into the projector. He flipped the machine on and the starting credits of the movie were projected onto the blank wall of the building. "We beat fear, remember?"

One hour into the movie, the Guardians all sat silently and motionless on their blankets, popcorn untouched, watching with a kind of horrified fascination. Sandy was watching through the cracks of his fingers, and everyone else wore various expressions of shock and disgust.

Meanwhile, Pitch was watching with unrestrained glee while Jack was practically bouncing up and down. "Whoa! How'd they get the blood to splatter like that, Pitch?" Jack asked, before he stuffed more popcorn in his mouth.

"Ah, it's a fairly simple mechanism, really. I could rig up the same thing with an air pump and some corn syrup."

"Y'think we could use something like that for Halloween?"

"That's a brilliant idea!" Pitch exclaimed. "Oh, that is definitely going on next year's agenda!"

The Guardians turned away from the film momentarily to watch this exchange, wondering if they should be more disturbed by what was on the screen or what was playing out in real life.


	78. Youth

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Dang, it's been a long time, guys. I'm sorry, I had to put the story on hiatus while I finished off my last term of university, or else it might not have been my last term of university. But I'm back now, and updates should (hopefully) be more timely! Apologies, again. Here, have the most sickeningly adorable thing I have ever written.
> 
> There's a couple references to the events of chapter 71 and 72, if you're wondering what they're rabbiting on about.

Jack had just come to visit the lair and was walking next to Pitch when the wintery Guardian suddenly faltered, staggering and clutching his staff to remain upright. He pressed a hand to his forehead, frowning. "I... I feel kinda funny..." he muttered.

"Don't be silly, you're immortal," Pitch replied dismissively, right as Jack suddenly collapsed in a heap. The boogeyman jerked in surprise and stooped over the crumpled form. "Jack! Jack, are you alri-"

A tiny hand reached out of the loose pile of clothing and pressed a finger against Pitch's nose. "Boop!" A small, chubby-cheeked face peeked out from under the frosted hood, brilliant blue eyes twinkling and teeth flashing in a bright smile.

Pitch blinked. "What." he more stated than asked.

"I got you!" the pale child giggled.

"...Jack?"

"Uh huh?" was the response.

Pitch straightened up and ran a hand through his hair agitatedly. Okay, Jack was now a toddler. Why was Jack a toddler? What could- Realization dawned. "Father Time... " he growled. Payback, presumably, for the prank from before. Which was completely out of line because it wasn't like the geezer couldn't just snap his fingers and grow a new beard. Why was the world always against him, it wasn't fair.

While Pitch was bemoaning his fate, Jack struggled out of the now much too large pair of pants and got to his feet, his hoodie hanging past his knees and the sleeves dragging on the floor. It was only when he started to totter over to where his staff had fallen that Pitch noticed.

"Oh no you don't." Pitch quickly snatched up the staff, keeping it out of the child's reach. Heavens only knew what sort of trouble the brat would get into in this state, with the power that he normally wielded.

Jack's eyes widened, and his lower lip started to tremble.

"You're not seriously going to..." Pitch trailed off as the boy sniffed and tears welled up in his eyes. "You're using that on the wrong person, boy. Do you have any idea how many children I've made cry over the last few eons?"

Jack's breath hitched on a sob and he raised tiny sleeve-covered hands to his eyes.

"No. I don't care. You're not getting this back," Pitch said, turning away.

The sound of sniffles and little keening whines followed him.

Pitch let out an exasperated growl and turned back to the boy. "Stop that. I'm not even doing anything to you."

But the brat continued, shoulders shaking and little pellets of ice falling to the floor under his chin.

Pitch rolled his eyes, let the staff sink into the shadows, and crouched down. He raised his hand and nightmare sand swirled up his forearm, shaping itself into the form of a small iridescent black lizard, clinging to Pitch's palm. "Jack, here, look at this..." the boogeyman coaxed.

The child paused in his crying and raised puffy eyes to look at the creature. The lizard let out a little screech, baring needle-sharp teeth, then skittered down Pitch's arm, between Jack's feet, and darted for the far end of the chamber. As was to be expected of a child with such a spectacularly absent sense of self-preservation as Jack, the boy squeaked in delight and took off after the sharp toothed terror. Pitch wasn't sure if he should be disgusted or relieved about that.

In any case, having Jack distracted gave Pitch time to consider his options. He doubted Jack's state would be permanent; Father Time was on good terms with the Man in the Moon, at least enough not to seriously damage one of his wards. Jack would go back to normal eventually, or Pitch would track down Father Time and  _make_  him turn Jack back. But what to do with him in the meantime?

Palming Jack off on the Guardians and letting them handle him was tempting, but knowing them, they'd probably blame this whole mess on him. And he couldn't count on Jack to intercede like he normally did; children were mercurial and capricious and Jack was just as likely to tell them that Pitch had been 'mean' to him as not. No, it was better not to involve the twit brigade. But that left him with babysitting duty, didn't it? Wrinkling his nose in distaste, Pitch glanced back over to Jack. The child had managed to corner the lizard on a higher ledge and was now holding up his hands and cooing to try to lure the thing back down. Pitch sighed and twitched his fingers. The lizard flicked out a obsidian tongue and crept down the wall, holding still as the toddler laughed and scooped the creature up in his arms. Narrowed eyes and a faint hissing noise were signs that the thing was decidedly unhappy with the current situation, but it made no moves to escape as Jack wobbled back over to Pitch and held it out with a smile.

"...yes, okay. Good...job. Thank you," Pitch muttered, plucking the creature out of Jack's hands. He flourished his hand and suddenly a dozen nightmare sand moths fluttered off in place of the lizard, disappearing into the darkness as the young boy gasped and clapped in wonder. Pitch half smiled. "Well, you're easier to impress like this, at least."

After there were no more moths to be seen, Jack shifted his gaze to the boogeyman and spent a long moment staring at him, forehead crinkled in concentration. "Uhm, Pitch?" Jack finally asked.

"Oh, you know who I am, do you?" Pitch replied, not entirely sure how much memory Jack had retained from prior to his de-aging. Apparently Father Time was more careful with memories than the Man in the Moon, though that wasn't saying much. "What is it?"

"Why're you wearing a dress?"

"This is a robe," Pitch replied flatly.

"Why're you wearing a roob?"

"Because I need to wear something."

"But why?"

"Because being naked is frowned upon."

"But why?"

"Because... it's... cold without clothes."

"But why?"

Well, this was starting to get tedious. "Because of you," he replied sharply.

"Me?" the child replied, eyes wide.

"Yes, it's all your fault."

"I made you wear a dress?"

"It's not a dress!"

"Oh. Okay," Jack said, blinking. "You're tall. Can I have a piggyback ride?"

"No."

"Why not?"

"Oh no. I'm not answering anything else you ask me that starts with the word 'why'," Pitch stated.

"Why?"

Pitch crossed his arms and silently stared down at the child.

Jack frowned, bit his lip, and looked down for a second. Then he raised his head again. "How come?" he asked with a smile.

Pitch groaned exasperatedly and dragged a hand down his face. "Why me?"

"How come you're allowed t'say why?"

"...You know what you need? Some clothes that actually fit," Pitch said, changing the subject. "I'll go find some. Nox!" A Hellhound loomed out of the shadows, panting. Pitch scooped Jack up and plopped him on the beast's back.

The little boy giggled and wound his fingers through the hound's shaggy fur, holding on and wiggling excitedly in place. "Whee!"

The Hellhound fixed Pitch with a glowing eye. "Yes, I know," Pitch said sympathetically. "It's not standard procedure, but you'll have to put up with it. Just keep him out of trouble while I'm gone. Jack, be... good."

"I'm always good!" the child claimed.

"You know, liars get dragged away by the boogeyman..."

"But I'm already here. So where'd you drag me to then?" he asked innocently.

"To..." Pitch fumbled for an appropriate location. "To an ice cream store. But you won't get to have any, just watch everyone else enjoy their dessert while you have to stay outside and look through a window," Pitch replied with a grin.

"No!" Jack gasped, looking stricken.

"Yes. So best be careful, boy," the boogeyman warned as he vanished into the shadows.

Pitch reappeared in a closed-down department store and started rifling through the children's clothing section. Knowing Jack, the brat wouldn't sit still for anything, so that ruled out anything with buttons or zippers or buckles... Elastic waisted pajamas it was then. Pitch sifted through his options and curled a lip in disgust. Ugh, were there any that  _weren't_ garishly brightly colored or covered in insipid cartoon caricatures? It was practically to a point that Pitch regretted how well he was able to see in the dark. Grumbling, he settled on a black set that was patterned with yellow, smiling stars. Not ideal, but at least it didn't make his eyes hurt. They would have to do. Pitch was straightening up and mentally preparing himself to return when something caught his eye. There, on a lower shelf- no doubt intended to tempt the children who were brought out shopping by their parents- was a motley collection of stuffed animals. In particular, there was a handful of rather... familiar-looking toys. And Pitch  _did_  have to worry about keeping Jack occupied. There was no reason why he couldn't have some fun as well.

As the boogeyman melted back into the darkness, a multicoloured butterfly, a red dog, a grey mouse, a fluffy yellow chick and a fuzzy white baby seal toy all disappeared with him.

* * *

Pitch came back, as he expected, to a mess. There were slick patches of ice everywhere, frost curling up the walls, all the Nightmares had fled into the shadows and Nox was in the middle of towing Jack back from a ledge by the scruff of his hoodie, scrambling for purchase on the ice that was crackling under his claws. Pitch strode forward, skirting the slippery patches, and snatched Jack up. "Got you!" he declared, managing to keep hold of the giggling and squirming child long enough to yank the pajama bottoms onto him. The shirt, however, proved to be more difficult.

"No!" Jack exclaimed when Pitch set him down and tried to lift the hoodie off. He curled up into a ball and crossed his arms, preventing the removal of the garment.

Pitch sighed. "It's too big for you, boy. You're swimming in that thing right now."

"No," Jack repeated mullishly, pouting.

"Fine. I don't really care if you can move in it or not," Pitch said with a shrug, tossing the pajama shirt over his shoulder and straightening up again. A moment later Jack had uncurled himself and lurched over to tug at Pitch's leg.

"Pitch, help," he pleaded, holding his arms up and waving the long sleeves.

"...Are you joking? I was fixing that and you didn't want me to."

"No. Help." The child stamped a foot.

"You are insufferable at any age. I'm amazed that your parents didn't abandon you in the wilderness to be devoured by wolves," Pitch muttered, kneeling down to roll up the sleeves of the hoodie until Jack's hands were free. "There, done."

"Thank you!"

"Mmn," Pitch grunted noncommitally as he rose. "Come along, brat. I've set up a game."

"What kinda game?" Jack asked, trailing after the boogeyman. After a few steps he reached out and snagged a hold of Pitch's fingers.

Pitch abruptly stopped and snapped his eyes downwards. There was a pause as glowering yellow eyes met wide, innocent blue ones, then Pitch growled and pulled his hand free. He clasped both of his hands behind his back, above Jack's reach, and set off again. "It's called Storm the Castle." A tug on one side of his robes let him know that Jack had apparently decided to latch his grubby mitts onto Pitch's clothing, if he couldn't hold his hand. Ugh. But the tunnel they were walking through quickly opened into a low-ceilinged chamber that was empty but for a squat miniature fort, seemly carved out the living rock. The walls were barely more than three feet high, and brightly colored stuffed animals were manning the ramparts. "And this, Jack, is the castle."

"Ooooh!" Jack released Pitch's robe to dash for the structure, but was brought up short by one of the toys- the butterfly- shuddering and suddenly being flung forward, whapping against his face. "What?" Jack said, as the toy fell to the floor, vanished into the shadows, and reappeared on the walls once more.

"Ah-ah, can't be doing that, boy. This is called  _Storm_  the Castle, after all. You've got to get rid of the original inhabitants of the place before you can have it for your own."

"But why?"

Not this again. "Because they won't share. They're greedy and selfish, you see, so if you want anything, you'll have to take it."

"Oh. That's not very nice."

"No, it isn't. You'd better teach them a lesson, hm?" Pitch replied, producing the white seal toy and handing it to Jack. "Go on, show them what you're made of."

Jack eyed the castle, biting his lip pensively. Then, after a moment's consideration, he hurried up to the 'castle' and started clambering up the walls.

"Better watch out Jack, the ra- the mouse is going to get in your way..."

"Nope! Because I'm gonna knock him over! And then off of the cliff, whreeeeew!" Jack exclaimed, shoving the toy off the walls. "Bye-bye!"

"Impressive. We'll make a strategist of you yet." Pitch commented, watching with no small amount of glee as the boy wreaked havoc on the plush defenders.

A half hour later, Jack stood triumphantly on the top of the small structure, waving the seal over his head. "I won!"

Pitch smirked and eyed the scattered 'Guardians', lying on the floor where they had been thrown. "So you did. I always knew you had it in you." Pitch paused and redirected his attention as a Nightmare trotted into the room, snorting. "What? Sector seventeen giving you trouble again, is it? Look, I  _told_  you you were supposed to avoid dreamcatchers... How many got stuck?" The reply was a whicker from the mare. "Really? Ugh. Well, they've still got... what? Five hours before sunrise? If you can't get them free in four, then come bother me again. I'm busy right now."

When Pitch turned back to the child, he spotted Jack still on the top of the 'castle', but the boy had picked up all the fallen toys and had them all arranged around him, burbling and playing happily with all of them. "What are you doing?" Pitch asked incredulously.

"They're not mean anymore. They're nice, so we're sharing!" Jack explained, hugging the stuffed animals to his chest.

Pitch groaned and covered his face with one hand in exasperation. "So this is an inherent trait he has, is it?" he asked no one in particular.

"What's a inharet?" Jack asked.

"It's a little creature that lives in your hair and steals your socks when you're not looking. And it's invisible," Pitch lied, lowering his hand and settling down into a chair that appeared out of the darkness.

"Is that why I don't have any socks?" Jack lifted up one bare foot and wiggled his toes.

"Yes. Yours is very fast, and big, and it has lots of long sharp teeth." Pitch said, watching as Jack's eyes widened and he raised a hand to pat his hair questingly. "Oh, almost got it. Better be careful, I heard they like to eat little boys too, when they grow big enough."

"But you'll protect me, won't you?"

"Of course I won't. That's a silly question," Pitch replied, propping his chin on one hand.

"Oh. Well, that's okay. My friends will, then," Jack said carelessly, snuggling his face into the plush toys he had gathered.

" _They_ will?" Pitch sputtered indignantly, sitting bolt upright. "Those... those  _things_  couldn't protect a wet paper bag!"

Jack blinked at him. "You're weird."

"I- You- ...Fine. Keep your stupid toys. See what good they do you," Pitch muttered, crossing his arms and turning his head to glare off into the gloom. There was several blessed moments where there was no inane chatter filling the air. Which Pitch supposed he should have known was too good to be true, because the next thing he knew there was a small body clambering up his leg and onto his lap. "What?! Stop that!" Pitch exclaimed, as Jack settled on his lap and curled up, grabbing a hold of a fistful of robe.

" 'M tired," the child said, not opening his eyes.

Pitch contemplated shoving him off. Then he thought better of it and vanished into a shadow instead, leaving Jack to flop down onto the chair, blinking confusedly. "I am not the fat man, child. You don't get to sit on my lap. And if you're going to sleep, you're not going to do it clinging to me; I'm a busy man," Pitch said, plucking the child up and tucking him under one arm as he set off through the lair once more. He still had the blankets and mattress from when he'd been ill lying around somewhere. They would do well enough.

Pitch unceremoniously dumped the boy on the mattress. "There."

"Can I have a bedtime story?" Jack asked, rolling himself up in the sheets.

"No."

"Aw." The child pouted, but his eyelids were already drooping. "S'no fun," he muttered, his statement half-covered with a wide yawn.

"I was not put on the earth to entertain you, boy."

The only response was a soft, tiny snore. Pitch sighed and took a moment to straighten his robes out, grimacing at the tiny, frosty handprints that had been left on it. Babysitting was horrendous, he had no idea why Jack was normally so fond of the little snots. Clearly the Guardians were all off of their rockers, wanting to look after the little brats. Though now he understood why most of them had the common sense to not interact directly with their charges. Finally satisfied with the state of his garments, Pitch bent down to tug another quilt over the boy before turning on his heel and striding out of the room. He had other children to see to, after all.

* * *

A few hours later, a loud yelp brought Pitch back, in a swirl of shadow, to the room he'd left Jack in. "Oh, you're back to normal."

"Ow, yes!" Jack cried, shoving the blankets off and plucking at the waistband of the now much-too-small pajama pants. "And these were really not designed for a teenager. All my circulation is being cut off at the waist!"

"I'll get you your old pair, then," Pitch replied with a shrug, turning to go.

"And a pair of scissors! I'm stuck!"

Once the clothing issue was sorted out again, Jack flopped back in relief. "Whew. That's better." He held out one hand and crooked his fingers. "Oh, and you can give it back now."

Pitch hummed nonchalantly and smiled. "Give what back, Jack?" he asked.

"My staff, you doof."

"Oh my, do I still have that? It must have completely slipped my mind."

"Yeah, I'm sure you just forgot. Now give it."

"Or what? Will you cry again?" Pitch asked with a smirk.

"Hey! You were mean to a little kid, what did you expect to happen?" Jack demanded, sitting up.

"Oh, I don't know, for you to have a little dignity?"

"I was four! And I don't remember you being very dignified. Dollies, Pitch? Really?"

Pitch tilted his chin up, folding his arms. "I'm sure I don't know what you're talking about. Clearly I terrified your younger self so much that you resorted to fabricating different memories of the event," he replied primly, before reaching into a shadow and withdrawing Jack's staff. "But I suppose I have tortured you enough for one day. Wouldn't want to break my playthings, now."

"Uh-huh. Right." Jack rolled his eyes and hopped to his feet, pulling the staff out of Pitch's hand, frost rimming the wood grain once more. "I've lost some prime blizzarding time as it is, so I'm gonna head out. I'll see you around." Jack paused at the exit and shot back a grin. "Oh, and you aren't half bad with kids, Pitch." Then he zipped off on a breeze, sputtered objections echoing behind him.


	79. Quasi

Jack dropped into Pitch's lair to find the boogeyman wandering around, peering into the cages and other dusty corners.

"Quasi!" he called. "Quasi, blast it! Where the devil could he have gotten to?"

"Who's Quasi?" Jack asked, flitting down to the bridge that Pitch stood on. And then something landed on his head. Something bristly and large and possessing far more legs than _anything_ should properly have. Jack froze, every inch of his skin crawling.

"Oh Jack, you found him!" Pitch said gleefully, clapping his hands. "There you are, Quasi. Naughty boy."

"Pitch, what is on my head?!" Jack hissed, not daring to move.

"Oh, don't worry, Jack. It's only a camel spider."

"A _what_?!"

"Oh, no, no, it's fine. They're not actually spiders, it's a misnomer. They're solifugids. An different species entirely. They're actually much more closely related to scorpions," Pitch explained, spreading his hands.

"Not. Helping!" Jack growled, clenching his hands on his staff.

"You should really relax, Jack. Being so tense can't be good for you, and they're not venomous at all.  And he really seems to like you. It must be because you're nice and cold. Fascinating creatures. They live in the desert and stick to the shadows to stay cool. It's really very amusing to watch them try to scurry into a person's shadow, since they're quite terrifying looking and it really looks like they're chasing the person, heh," Pitch said with a chuckle.

Jack's eye twitched, but he stiffened when he felt the thing shift. "Pitch. Pitch, it's moving," Jack whimpered. His breath caught when he felt it start to clamber down the back of his head and down his neck, panic spiking through him. "Pitch don't let it go in my shirt Pitch get it off Pitch please!"

"Oh, all right, _fine_ ," the boogeyman sighed, stepping forward to gently scoop the creature off of the back of Jack's neck. "Honestly. No appreciation for the lovely things of this world."

Jack sputtered incoherently and scrubbed his hand desperately over his head and neck, trying to wipe away the sensation of multiple bristly legs against his skin. A sort of growly, rattling sound made him pause and stare down at the thing that Pitch held. At least this one was small enough to fit in only one hand, though only barely. It was the length of the boogeyman's outstretched fingers and palm together, and a good inch or more of that size seemed to consist entirely of massive mandibles and fangs that the creature was rubbing together to produce the noise, the first two of its eight long legs outstretched towards Jack. It was entirely covered in beige bristles and tan chitin, its body segmented and alien-looking and one of the freakiest things Jack had ever seen, and he had been closely aquainted with the physical embodiment of fear itself for the last several decades. Jack took several hurried steps backwards.

Pitch made a cooing sound and stroked a finger along the length of the thing's body, soothing. "Poor dear. Look, he misses you."

"I don't miss it!" Jack snapped, clutching his staff defensively in front of him.

"Apparently," Pitch replied, shrugging. "Very well." He vanished into the shadows to reappear on a further walkway, pulling open the door of one of the cages and placing the thing carefully inside. He shut the door with a click and blinked back to where Jack was. "Better now?"

"Don't _do_ that!" Jack snapped.

"But Jack, I didn't do anything," Pitch replied innocently. "I can hardly be blamed for something that a wild animal does, can I? And you're always talking about how I should make more friends..."

"Your taste in friends _sucks_ ," Jack grumbled.

Pitch snorted. "So what does that say about you, when you're on the top of that short list?" he asked with a smirk.

"It means that my standards for friends are seriously too low."

"Well, I won't argue that. I mean, look at them. An overgrown rabbit, a jumped-up feather duster, a doddering old man, animated cat litter, and more out-of-control brats than you can shake a stick at," Pitch sighed, shaking his head. "Why, if it weren't for me, I'd be worried that you were entirely out of your mind."

"Could your ego be any bigger?" Jack asked, rubbing his forehead exasperatedly.

"Oh, I'm sure it could be. A few compliments would go right to my head," Pitch drawled, holding out his hands as nightmare sand took the shape of two small, vaguely humanoid things. He cleared his throat and spoke for them in a falsetto.

"Oh, mister boogeyman, you're so horrifying!"

"Oh, you're too kind," Pitch answered himself.

"And so devious!"

"I know, I know. It's a burden sometimes, really." Pitch demurred, glancing expectantly up at Jack. "Your turn."

Jack snorted, trying to stifle his laughter, but quickly gave up and cracked up. "You're the biggest dork I know," he said, between chuckles.

Pitch sniffed primly, the nightmare sand dissolving and trickling away between his fingers. "Well, now you're just being hurtful."

"The truth hurts, Pitch," Jack replied heartlessly. "Now, I dropped by about this festival that they're holding out in Alaska..."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Author's note- If you're arachnophobic I really advise against googling 'camel spider'. Just don't.


	80. Intoxicated

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings for implied alcohol consumption and general drunkeness in this chapter.

This was all Jack's fault.

The Guardian had to be spreading malicious lies about Pitch. Otherwise, when the handful of Dionysus' nymphs had spotted him during his rounds in Greece, they definitely would have fled in terror, like they  _should_ have, instead of extending an invitation to the Nightmare King.

Well, he would set this to rights, see if he didn't.

Part one of the plan was to steal some of their wine. Serves them right.

Part two of the plan was... er... What was part two again? He couldn't seem to remember. Maybe it would be easier if the blasted room would stop spinning. Why would anyone even make the room do that?

Sitting down, yes, that was better. He was annoyed at Jack, that was right. He should really go find the Guardian. This was a good plan.

* * *

Jack was resting on a railing of an apartment balcony when he was abruptly grabbed by the arm and yanked sideways and everything went dark. Really dark. What was going on?

...Well, really there was only one explanation, wasn't there? "Pitch?" Jack called.

"Helloooo, Jack," a voice echoed through the blackness, followed by a eerie giggle.

Jack sighed. "What is it now?" He swept his staff through the darkness in front of him, trying to light up his surroundings. He could feel his power surge, and the gust of cold, but there was no hint of the cold blue light that he could summon. Jack rolled his eyes and tried to take a step forwards, only to find that his feet were stuck fast in some kind of... goop. He could feel it now, suddenly, the invisible substance lapping at his ankles and holding him fast. "Uh... Pitch?"

Another bout of laughter was the only reply.

"Glad you're having fun," Jack muttered, jabbing the stuff with the butt of his staff. It also stuck, as if trapped in the grip of something lurking in the shadows. Channeling more power through the wood seemed to do nothing. The goop was at his knees now. "This isn't funny!" he yelled, thrashing against the stuff.

"Jack is nimble, Jack has wit..." He was sinking faster now, the ooze lapping at his waist. "But Jack can do nothing, stuck in this pit..."

"Pitch stop it, this is getting really creepy!" Jack shouted, anxiety stirring in his stomach at the reminiscent sensation of sinking, of helplessness. The goo was at chest level now, rising fast.

"Ah, your fear is so delicious, Jack. Did you know?" Pitch sighed from the darkness. "There should really be more of it..."

The ooze had risen up to his throat now, lapping at his jaw. The anxiety was starting to shift into something more panicked by this point, his breaths coming fast and desperate. Jack tilted his head to keep his face above the surface of the goop and opened his mouth to yell-

And suddenly he was in free-fall through the air, tumbling head over heels and coming to an abrupt and jarring stop on a solid stone floor. "Ow," he muttered, sitting up and rubbing his tailbone.

"Jack, how nice of you to  _drop_  in!" Pitch giggled, actually  _skipping_  out of the shadows.

"Pitch, what..." Jack trailed off as Pitch twirled in a tight circle and stumbled, barely managing to avoid faceplanting. The boogeyman straightened to grin maniacally at Jack, as if nothing had happened. "Are you drunk?!" Jack asked incredulously.

Pitch looked down at Jack and blinked. "No,  _you're_  drunk. Because this is all your fault."

"That doesn't make any sense-"

The boogeyman cackled and threw his hands out emphatically. "Nothing makes sense, Jack! The world is an absolute mess!" The laughter subsided to a chuckle and he steepled his fingers. "But I'll fix it all eventually and everything will be better, yessss."

Jack heaved a sigh, rubbing his forehead. "Yeah, okay, you're being really weird, and I've got work to do. You stay in here until the booze wears off, okay? I'm heading out-"

Pitch suddenly flopped down on the ground, laying across Jack's shins. "No. You have to stay. Otherwise, I'm keeping your feet."

"My feet?"

"Mhm. There are plenty of fears of what happens if you leave your feet sticking out from under the covers when you go to sleep, you know. Some stories say that I eat them, or chop them off. And ghosts aren't supposed to have feet in some mythologies, you know. I'd be doing you a favor, really..." Pitch mused, prodding one of Jack's feet with a finger. He paused and grinned when Jack jerked and snorted. "Ah, that's right, you're ticklish, aren't you?"

"Pitch, don't you dar- Ahaha! No! Stop it!" Jack exclaimed as Pitch grabbed one of his feet and dragged his fingers along the sole. After a moment's struggle, he managed to free one of his legs and kick the boogeyman off.

"Ow, rude," Pitch grumbled, facedown on the floor.

"Yeah, you deserved that," Jack replied heartlessly.

"I hate you."

"I'm heartbroken to hear that."

"Good. I hope it shatters into itty-bitty pieces and punctures your stomach," Pitch growled, bringing his arms up in an attempt to push himself back upright and managing to fail spectacularly at that.

Jack snorted and scooted down so he was close enough to roll Pitch onto his side. "I'd say that you're a weird drunk, but I'm pretty sure it's not the booze talking."

Pitch blinked owlishly at Jack. "Alcohol can't talk. Unless we're in one of my nightmares where it can and then it blames you for everything that went wrong in your life. Those ones are pretty fun, I like those. Also the ones where it turns into an acid monster and destroys everything. And then eats them. Monster nightmares are the best," Pitch sighed happily, a distant look in his eyes.

"Uh huh. I wonder if I should be worried that none of this surprises me in the slightest," Jack mused, propping his elbow on one knee and resting his chin in his hand.

The boogeyman focused on Jack again. "You are hard to surprise and it is annoying, not worrying."

"Thanks for that."

Pitch frowned and reached out to grab a handful of Jack's hoodie, tugging at it. "Jack, I have something important to tell you. Are you listening?"

"Yeah, sure. What is it?"

"I want... I want you to know I don't hate you, okay? I don't hate you," Pitch paused then, blinking. "Which is strange, because I really should. I mean, you're a Guardian and you're a brat and completely aggravating and a royal pain in the neck and by all counts I should despise you. But I can't. Do you have any idea how irritating that is? I... I think I hate you because I can't hate you. You suck," Pitch grumbled, glaring blearily at the Guardian he had a hold of.

Jack laughed at that and mussed Pitch's hair, ignoring the rumbling growl this provoked from the boogeyman. "Yeah, I love you too buddy."

Pitch grumbled and shook off Jack's hand before squinting suspiciously at the Guardian. "I didn't say that. I'm quite sure I never said that."

"Well, not in so many words. Why're you so against admitting you might actually like me, anyway? It won't give me an ego complex or anything, you know. I already know I'm awesome."

"...Can't tell you I want you around. You'll go away," Pitch mumbled, curling in on himself a little and staring down at his knees.

"What? Why would you think I would do that?"

"You did, the last time I said it."

"But you never said anything like- Wait, you mean Antarctica? You think that the reason I turned you down then was because you asked me outright? Not, you know, because of the  _world domination_  thing?"

Pitch let go of Jack's hoodie and rolled gracelessly onto his back, gazing blankly up at the gloom that fomed the ceiling. "You come here when I say I don't want you to. So I can't want you to come here, because then you won't."

"Pitch, you have the weirdest logic ever. And you're really terrible at acting uninviting, you know that, right?"

"I am the BEST at acting, thank you. And I have proof of it, because you keep coming back, ahaha! I fooled you," Pitch cackled, pointing triumphantly in Jack's general direction. "Who's the... the... the smart one now, huh?"

Jack sighed. "Yes, that's right Pitch, I've been completely taken in by your devious plot. Good job."

"Thank you. It's nice to be appreciated," he replied primly.

"So, any other deep, dark secrets that you've been holding out on me with?" Jack asked curiously, cocking his head to one side.

"You have  _gigantic_  ears," Pitch replied, spreading his hands out in front of him as if illustrating the size.

"...Was that something you considered a secret or are you just making a random comment now?"

"No, I mean it. They're massive. Do you use them as rudders for flight?"

"Pretty sure that's not how it works."

"Hmn. Wasted opportunity," Pitch replied, folding his arms. "I always figured that was why the dolt in the moon decided to pull you out of the ice in the first place."

"What, really?"

Pitch chuckled. "Yes, of course. It's your only redeeming feature."

"Oh, funny. Haha," Jack said flatly. He gave Pitch a light shove with one bare foot. "Aren't you just charming."

"I am a delight."

"Modest, too," the Guardian replied, rolling his eyes.

"Exceedingly." Pitch hiccuped, and his eyelids fluttered.

Jack sighed and hopped to his feet, flicking his staff into the air to grab it. "Right, I'm gonna let you sleep this off. You'll let me leave with my feet, and in return, I won't come in and make you even more miserable when you're hungover."

Pitch flopped onto his side to squint at the Guardian. "Why would I want your feet?"

"No reason."

"Hmph. Well, I'm not drunk, and I won't be hungover, and I'm definitely not-" Pitch's sentence was interrupted by a yawn. "-going to sleep, but if you wish to flee in terror before me, feel free. A few terrified screams would be nice too."

"I'll keep that in mind," Jack said cheerily, giving a mock salute. "Catch you later!" A gust of frigid wind, and Jack was whisked away.


	81. Understanding

Jack figured that Pitch must have recovered from his little adventure, because it took less than a day before Jack felt the familiar prickle of hair raising on the back of his neck that signalled that Pitch had decided to stalk him from the shadows. Figuring that the boogeyman would venture out into the realm of corporeal-ness eventually, he decided to ignore it. Besides, he had very important Guardian business to attend to just now. Specifically, instigating a riotous, school-wide free-for-all snowball fight during recess. And dumping a load of slush onto the teacher who kept trying to put a stop to the whole thing. You know, top priority stuff.

Later, after the entire population of the school had headed back inside, soaked to the skin, Jack lingered near a thicket of trees for a few moments. He sighed in satisfaction for another job well done and stretched his arms behind his back, waiting for Pitch to pop out of the shadows. His spine cracked and Jack dropped his hands back to his sides and rolled his neck, but there was still no activity from the darkness. Well, whatever then. With a shrug, Jack took off on the winds again.

Hours later, the creeping sensation of being watched did not go away, but Pitch  _still_  hadn't shown himself. Apparently the boogeyman wasn't going to make the first move.

"Are you going to say anything, or did the hangover actually kill you and you've just decided to haunt me?" he asked out loud, and the creepy feeling abruptly vanished. "...Did you just run away?"

There was no reply.

* * *

The cycle of being stalked and then scaring Pitch off just by attempting to talk to him continued until the fourth iteration, when Jack finally got fed up with the whole thing. He headed back to the lair to confront the boogeyman. "Pitch!" he called as he dropped down the tunnel, wondering if he could expect a response or if he'd have to wait the weirdo out.

There was a heartbeat's pause as Jack landed lightly on the stone floor, then an exasperated sigh echoed through the caverns and Pitch stepped out of the shadows, hands clasped behind his back. "What is it now, Frost?"

"Why've you just been following me around?"

Pitch raised a hairless brow. "I've been doing what now? I'm afraid you must be mistaken."

"You totally have been stalking me," Jack said flatly.

The boogeyman snorted. "Paranoia doesn't suit you, Jack. Why on earth would I waste my time watching  _you_?"

"I don't know, that's why I'm asking you!" Jack exclaimed in frustration. "Normally you don't miss a chance to yak my ear off. Now it's like you're... Are you embarrassed about how you acted when you were sloshed?"

Pitch swallowed and pressed his lips together in a thin line. "...Not particularly."

"Hey, you can relax, you know. I already have a pile of blackmail material on how ridiculous you are, that was barely a drop in the bucket," Jack said with a grin.

Pitch pasted an obviously fake smirk onto his face. Considering how creepy his normal smile was, a forced one was was somehow even more unsettling. "I'm afraid your wasting your time there. I have no shame, didn't anyone tell you?"

Jack blinked. Okay, it wasn't the prospect of humiliation that was making Pitch act so stilted. This was more like... he was scared. "Do you  _still_ think I'm going to go away if I know you actually enjoy hanging out together?" he asked, disbelievingly.

The smile dropped off Pitch's face, and the boogeyman started to become blurred around the edges, like he was on the verge of vanishing into the darkness. "I'm... I haven't the faintest idea what you're talking about, Frost."

"Wow," Jack sighed, shaking his head. "How did you manage to be older than dirt and denser than a bag of rocks?"

"I'm sure you have Guardian business to attend to. You can sod off now," Pitch said, with none of his usual vitriol. Jack looked up in time to see Pitch step back into the shadows and start to fade.

"Whoa! Hey! Hold up there!" Jack blurted, holding up a hand. "I know this is kind of a foreign concept to you, but I actually  _like_  being in places where I'm welcome."

"Being welcome by a pack of brats is significantly different from being welcome by the boogeyman, Frost. You made that clear," Pitch replied, voice cold.

"I didn't join up with you in Antartica because you were hurting people! I had a problem with what you were doing, not who you are! Anyone else would be able to pick up on that, jeez!" Jack exclaimed.

"And you don't take issue with my behavior now?"

"Well right now you're being stupid. But normally, no. We're friends, for pete's sake! I wouldn't spend time with you if I didn't actually want to!"

Pitch stared at Jack appraisingly, expression unreadable. "Really?"

"Yes!" Jack threw up his hands, exasperated.

"Hmn. You're very strange."

" _I'm_ the weird one?"

"Absolutely," Pitch replied. He shifted his weight, some of the tension that coiled through his stance bleeding away. "Well, I'm glad we had this talk. But not really. It's what you're supposed to say, though, I believe. I have other matters to attend to now."

"Are you going to quit following me around all the time, then?"

Pitch rolled his eyes. "I have better things to do, Jack," he drawled, before finally slipping fully into the darkness.

* * *

Jack woke up in a pile of soft fabric, which was a bit of a surprise considering he was quite sure he'd started his nap on a tree branch. He groaned sleepily and rolled over. His movement was cut short when he came up against cold, unyielding metal. Bars. Because the boogeyman was clearly having another existential crisis set off at the prospect of actually being liked and obviously that could be solved by messing with Jack's dreams. Did Pitch have any other coping mechanisms at all? He could have at least  _tried_ to be a little more creative this time. Jack sighed. "Seriously, Pitch? You're a bit of a one-trick pony, aren't you? I'm not falling for it," he called out, snuggling back into the blankets and going back to sleep.

Waking up again resulted in Jack  _still_  being in the cage, which was kind of frustrating. If Pitch was going to throw a fit he could at least put a little more effort into it than this. Jack heaved a sigh and sat up, actually bothering to take in his surroundings this time around. It was... blue. The cage was blue. Jack's staff was hanging on a hook that had been attached to one of the strangely-colored bars; the floor of the cage was at least seven feet in diamater, and covered with a brown rug. The pile of stuff Jack had been sleeping in was pushed against one side of the cage; it was a futon of some sort. The other side was clear of stuff but for a small pile of candy. A steel box of some kind with vents on the side of it had been bolted to the ceiling of the cage.

Jack raised his eyebrows. Well, this was new. He hoped that the vents weren't airholes for some new critter Pitch had decided to adopt-

"Surprised?" Pitch's voice asked from above. Jack looked up to see the man grinning and peering into the cage from on top of the structure.

"...This isn't a nightmare, is it," Jack said more than asked.

Pitch blinked. "Why would it be a nightmare?"

Jack sighed. "Okay, so what's the deal with all this?"

"It's for you. I made it. It's even refrigerated, see?" Pitch reached through the bars and tapped at the mysterious box that had been attached to the ceiling. It shuddered and started blowing cold air down on Jack. "It was a bit of a pain working out the wiring, but I-"

" _Why_?" Jack interrupted, gesturing frustratedly.

"Well, all of the other twits have a guest room for you in their domains if you want to stay there for a while. I knew I could do much better if I tried, so I did. Now you can sleep here whenever you want instead of anywhere else," Pitch explained cheerily.

"Pitch, this is a cage," Jack said flatly.

"Oh no, no, no." Pitch waved his hands dismissively. "I turned the lock around. It locks from the inside now. I suppose I could still trap you in there with a length of chain and a padlock, but the same could be said for most rooms really."

Jack dragged a hand down his face. "Okay, so let me get this straight. You've decided that what I really need is a napping spot in the place where all bad dreams come from, made me one out of a cage, and then kidnapped me while I was sleeping to show me it."

"Well, if you want to boil it down to the bare bones like that," Pitch said with a shrug. "A fair amount of work did go into that second step, you know."

"I suppose I only have myself to blame, don't I?" Jack sighed to himself.

Pitch cocked his head to one side. "For what?"

"Nevermind."


	82. Time Out

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is a silly non-canon side story that I wrote as a birthday present for a friend of mine. I wasn't gonna put it in the main story but it got way too long and I figured I'd share. Hope you like it, Zinfandel.

Pitch woke up confused.

Mainly confused because he  _didn't_  sleep. He didn't need to, and there were always terrors to attend to. Why on earth would he be-

Jack was scared. And this was a fear of the dark, the unknown, and Pitch hadn't known Jack to display that kind of fear for decades.

Confusion about the sudden emergence of his sleeping patterns faded in the face of the curiousity that sparked from that observation, and Pitch quickly slipped into the shadows to investigate. The fear, unfortunately, vanished just as Pitch reached the lake. He hmphed in disappointment and cast around for Jack. No lingering fear for him to pull at? Shame. Where was Jack, anyway? He cast around the lake, but there was no sign of the Guardian to be seen. But he knew Jack was here, and he couldn't just disappear-

The sound of cracking ice brought his attention to the center of the lake. Fissures appeared in the thick ice, and then Jack was lifted up out of the water, taking a gasp of air and looking around in confusion.

What. Why had Jack been under the ice? That didn't make any sense, HOW would Jack even get under the ice? He would freeze it solid before he could get in there-

He was wearing different clothes, too. The blue hoodie was gone, replaced with a tattered white shirt and a brown cape. Pitch didn't exactly bother to keep up to human clothing standards, but that seemed more the style of clothing of a few hundred years ago, that he could remember.

Oh, and now Jack was reacting to his staff like he'd never seen it before. At least he was reasonably sure that was what it was like; Jack was normally excitable but generally not this enamored with the frilly white frost that he left constantly in his wake.

What on earth was happening? He could have sworn he was in the past, or something.

The wind suddenly swept Jack up into the air, and instead of the usual easy grace that the Guardian displayed, Jack flailed and fumbled and fell out of the sky, the branches of a tree breaking his fall. Pitch couldn't hold back a soft laugh at that. If this was a newly made Jack, he must have improved a lot over the course the three centuries he'd had. It was like watching a newborn deer stumble around right now.

He tried to stifle the sounds of his amusement when Jack paused and glanced around searchingly in the darkened woods. He wasn't about to give up a prime disaster-watching seat just yet.

He flitted through the shadows, following Jack as the boy made his way towards the lights and sounds of a small village. Pitch choked back another snort of laughter when Jack faceplanted during his attempt to land near the outskirts.

Jack's utter ineptitude didn't seem to deter him at all, and after a brief scuffle with his own cape, Jack managed to get back to his feet and headed into town. No doubt to try to cause some trouble and-

Why was he trying to talk to adults?

Did he really not know what his limitations were-

A child ran straight through Jack and he'd gasped and clutched at himself as if to check if he was still there and suddenly it wasn't funny anymore.

* * *

Jack didn't know what happened. One moment he was in the town square, surrounded by people who didn't seem to see him, and then someone walked through him, like he wasn't even there, sending a convulsive shudder through his whole body, and the next he was suddenly being seized by something that lunged out of an alleyway and dragged him into the shadows. Literally. For a moment there was only darkness in Jack's view, and the unsettling feeling that he wasn't alone in the depths of it, and then he was abruptly in a secluded, darkened gap between two houses.

He jerked and jumped back a step as a tall, slim man with luminous and predatory eyes loomed over him. Jack clutched his staff defensively to his chest.

"You don't need to be afraid of me, Jack," the man said, taking a step forward to match Jack's step back.

"How-how do you know my name?!" Jack demanded.

That prompted a dark chuckle from the figure. "I know a lot of things, Jack. I know who and what you are, I know where you came from, and I know why no one can see you."

"Wha- Did you do this to me?"

The ominous man paused at that, blinking. "No, you can blame the Man in the Moon for that. I'm not capable of such things. You're a spirit now, a tale, like me. And do you know what happens to stories when no one tells them?"

"I don't know what-"

"They disappear, Jack. Vanish, like they aren't even there."

"What are you talking about?" Jack snapped.

"They don't believe in you, Jack. They don't believe in you, and so it's as though you don't even exist." A toothy grin spread over the man's face. "I can help you change that, though..."

"Uh, yeah, well, thanks for that, Mr. Tall Dark and Creepy," Jack replied, dipping his head in mock acknowledgement without once taking his eyes off of the figure. "But you know what, I think I'm good."

The grin slid off the man's face and he straightened up, clasping his hands behind his back. "You don't trust me."

"Not really, no. Why should I?" Jack said flatly.

The man sighed and shrugged. "Fair point. I'll just do it on my own, I suppose." He turned on his heel and strode out of the alleyway, turning a corner and vanishing from sight.

"Do what? Hey, hold up!" Jack exclaimed, rushing out of the alley. The dark figure who had accosted him was skirting the edge of one house, away from the firelight and from the people who still remained in the square, though it was getting quite late by now, so there were few people wandering around.

"Curious, Jack?" Another sharp-toothed grin was flashed before the unsettling man stopped at a window, pulled open the shutters, and peered through it. "One, two, three..." he counted something inside. "Yes, those should do nicely..."

Jack hurried over to the window to see the slumbering forms of three siblings, huddled together for warmth on the chilly winter night. "Those are kids," he said uneasily.

"Yes, they are. Precious children..." The man replied, his smile razor-sharp now. And suddenly, he was gone. Jack blinked and looked around for the dark spirit, finally spotting him now inside the house, looming over the bed. As the shadow that that the man cast fell over the children, their peacefully sleeping faces scrunched up in anxiety or discomfort, hands tightening on blankets as if in the grips of a bad dream. The man lifted gleaming yellow eyes to Jack and spread his hands. "You're more than welcome to join us, Jack," he said, still grinning.

"Stop!" Jack yelled, clenching his staff and lunging forwards to leap through the window. He was stopped halfway over the sill when shadows abruptly rose up and swallowed both the creepy man and the sleeping children, leaving no trace behind. Jack glanced around desperately, heart pounding. He couldn't just leave the kids to... whatever that guy was. But there wasn't any sign of where they had gone-

A chill breeze gusted over him, seeming to tug at his clothes. As good a clue to follow as any, Jack supposed as he pushed away from the window and dashed off in the direction that the wind was pulling him. The breeze drew him onwards, but didn't pick up enough to lift him up, and he quickly approached a clearing just inside the woods surrounding the town. Sounds of whimpers reached his ears, but they were quickly drowned out by a dark snarl.

"Pipe down, you little snots. These are Jack Frost's woods, and I don't want you bringing him down on us."

"J-Jack Frost?" A soft voice stammered.

"Oh, haven't you heard of him? He's the one who leaves those pretty little patterns on your windows, the one who makes the snow sparkle in the sunlight. He's bizarrely fond of little brats like you, and it would be  _highly_  inconvenient for me if he stumbled across us, so BE QUIET!" the dark man snapped, just as Jack crashed through the underbrush.

The children were in some kind of dark cage, suspended a few inches above the snow. The younger two were huddled behind their older sister, who stood down the looming shadow-man with all the courage that a nine-year old could muster. "GET AWAY FROM THEM!" Jack yelled, as the gentle breeze that had been leading him suddenly became a screaming gale, whipping up ice and snow and hurling it at the ominous spirit.

The man stumbled backwards, lifting his arms to shield his face from shards of ice that flew past him. He fixed Jack with a searing glare, all hints of the previously friendly demeanor gone. " _Frost,_ " he hissed venomously. "This isn't over!" With those last words, he fell into the shadows and vanished, the dark cage disappearing with him, leaving the children to drop into the snow.

The wind dropped immediately, and Jack hurried over to the kids. "Are you okay?" he asked.

The little girl and her brother and sister blinked up at him in wonder. "Jack Frost?" the eldest asked, wonderingly.

"That's me! Come on, let's get you guys home before you catch cold," Jack replied, reaching out with only an instant's hesitation, remembering the person who had just passed right through him before. The girl took a hold of his hand, one of her siblings holding her other hand, and the third sibling's hand as well, forming a chain. Jack drew them back to the village; they were only a few minutes' walk from their home. Jack lifted them back in through the window and tucked them into bed. "Don't worry, I won't let him bother you guys again," he promised as he slipped back out into the night. And the children seemed to believe him, as they easily settled in and closed their eyes while Jack was shutting the shutters.

The sounds of faint applause made Jack jerk and whirl around to see the dark man from before, clapping. "Well done, Jack. You are a natural, aren't you?" he asked, nonchalantly.

Jack bared his teeth and leveled his staff at the man, the wind picking up all around him. "What do you want?!" he demanded.

The man smiled as if they were having a pleasant chat. "I want to help you, Jack. Speaking of which, you should make the children an ice sculpture or something, or they'll forget you in the morning, think it was all just a dream."

"You kidnapped a bunch of kids!" Jack snapped.

He waved a hand dismissively. "Psssh. I borrowed them. They weren't even gone ten minutes, no harm done. You'd be surprised at how resilient children are, Jack."

"And what if I hadn't found you?"

"Why, they would have been sent back home, safe and sound. I  _frighten_  children, Jack. I don't have any interest in doing them lasting harm." He paused, blinking. "Oh, that's right, we haven't been introduced. Pitch Black, the boogeyman, at your service," he added, sweeping a bow. "And I do truly want to help."

"I don't want your help!" Jack snapped, frost sparking along the length of his staff.

Pitch's smile faded. "Very well, Jack. Have it your way. I'll be dropping by tomorrow night, if you change your mind. Best of luck," he said, dipping his head before vanishing into the darkness once more.

* * *

Morning dawned, bright and sunny, on the small village. Jack shot up from his crouched position outside of the children's window at the sound of the door to the house creaking open. Out tumbled the trio of children, bundled up in warm clothing and giggling among themselves. Jack sighed, relieved to see that they were okay. "Hey, guys. It's good to see-" he started to say, before the eldest kid ran right through him, cutting through his body more sharply than any winter wind. Jack gasped, clutching his chest. None of the children so much as glanced at him as they dashed by. "Hey. Come on! Hello?" Jack called once he had recovered, whirling around to watch the kids head down the street. Nothing, not a hint that any of them had heard him.

But... But they had seen him. They had seen him last night! How could they just-

_Think it was all a dream?_

Jack gritted his teeth. No. He could  _make_ them see him, he could. He didn't need help.

But by sunset, all he had gotten from his efforts had been five more people running straight through him, driving all the air from his lungs each time. None of the snowballs or icicles or frost patterns he made had been even  _considered_ anything but completely mundane in nature. Pegging an older kid with a snowball had been blamed on other bystanders, and even though the ensuing snowball fight had been fun, it didn't help Jack in being seen. So now he was crouched on a treebranch, watching the townsfolk hurry home in the fading light.

"I did warn you about them forgetting, you know," a soft voice said beside him, as the last rays of day vanished. The branch didn't so much as shift to indicate more weight was on it, but the feeling of hair prickling on the back of Jack's neck gave him no doubt that the boogeyman had stopped by, as promised.

"Here to gloat?" Jack grumbled, not looking up.

"It gives me no pleasure to see you like this, believe it or not. I've had far too many similar experiences," Pitch replied.

Jack sighed and straightened up, turning to glance at the dark spirit. "What's the catch?"

"The... what?"

"You're not offering help out of the kindness of your heart, Pitch."

"I don't see why I couldn't be. Judging people on their appearances is rather presumptuous, isn't it?" the man asked, meeting Jack's flat, disbelieving stare with an amused one of his own. "To answer your question, it's a mutually beneficial arrangement. I scare the children, you rescue them. Take a few measures to make them remember, and you'll even be able to spend time with them in the daylight, too."

"And I'm supposed to believe that you can't scare kids all on your own."

"Well, yes, I can. But it's hardly as fun. I like a good competition. Don't be thinking that all of your rescues will be as easy as that first one," Pitch replied with a sharp-toothed smile, before sobering. "And of course, I'll personally guarantee the safety of all of the children. No harm will come to them under my care."

Jack bit his lip, seeming to consider the offer. Finally he raised his gaze back to Pitch, eyes narrowed. "If  _any_  of them get so much as a bruise, I'll-"

"Yes, yes, you'll hunt me down to the ends of the earth, and I will pay dearly. I've heard the spiel before," Pitch said dismissively. He suddenly vanished, and Jack jerked and whirled around as he felt a hand tap him on the shoulder. The boogeyman had blinked behind Jack faster than it took the boy to realize that he was no longer in his original spot. "Believe me, Jack. If I wanted to hurt children, I wouldn't be reckless enough to attract people's attention to myself when I did. I have quite the ideal skill set for secrecy, after all," he said with a lazy smirk.

Jack glared at the dark spirit. "Deal is that I get to kick your rear, right? When do we start?"

The man's smirk widened into a grin, and he extended one hand as if to shake. "You can try, Jack. And we can start right now."

"I'll do more than tr- wah!" Jack started to retort, but was cut off as he took Pitch's hand and was suddenly dragged into the shadows. The next thing he knew, he was standing in front of a house, with Pitch nowhere to be seen. A window shutter on his left slowly creaked open, and he heard a choked-off gasp from the inside of the room. Then the wind swirled around him and he was on the chase again.

* * *

"What do you mean you don't know how to make ice sculptures?" Pitch demanded in a hushed tone, the both of them outside of the home once more.

"I don't know how! I'm new at this!" Jack exclaimed in a whisper-shout. "What makes you think I even can?"

"Because you coul- you can make snow and frost and all that nonsense, a simple bit of shaped ice shouldn't be a problem!"

"If it's so easy,  _you_  do it!"

"Ice isn't my domain, you idiot!" Pitch snapped, then heaved an exasperated sigh. "Can you make a chunk of ice, then? You seemed to be just dandy at that when you were firing them at me." As if to illustrate his point, Pitch picked at a patch on the hem of his robe that had been completely crusted over with ice.

"Hey, you told me to do my worst-"

"I didn't ever say that, actually," Pitch interjected, not looking up from his attempts to defrost his clothing.

"Well you implied it when you were being a giant jerk! Which was constantly!" Jack retorted, eyeing his staff calculatingly. "Now shut it. I'm concentrating."

"Oh, was that what that was? I thought I heard gears grinding," Pitch drawled.

"Shhh!" Jack snapped as he closed his eyes and the wind swirled around him. A moment later, an irregular chunk of ice the size of a pumpkin was lying on the ground where Jack had pointed his staff. "How's that?"

"Hmph. I suppose I can work with that," Pitch muttered, dropping the bottom of his robe and stepping up to the ice. Some kind of black sand trickled out of his palms and swirled around the chunk, obscuring it from sight. The stuff swirled faster and faster and then suddenly dropped away, leaving a small figurine behind, scattered among a pile of ice shavings. Pitch picked it up and plonked it in Jack's hand. "There. You'd best learn how to do these on your own; I'm certainly not doing this every bloody time."

Jack blinked and looked the sculpture over. The figurine was humanoid, with spiky hair, wearing a cloak like his and holding a staff like his. "It's me?"

"Well, it's not a perfect likeness, but it will melt some before the children will wake up anyway. It seems an appropriate way to get the message across."

"I... Thanks," Jack said, hopping through the window to place the sculpture on the bedside table. He tucked the blankets more tightly around the napping kids, then he slipped back outside and carefully closed the shutters. "So, got any more dastardly plots against the kids of this town?"

"Oh, I think you can count on that, Jack," Pitch replied with a smirk.

* * *

Three 'rescues' later, Jack strolled down the dark, empty street of the town next to Pitch, giving the other a light shove. "You nearly made me jump out of my skin that time, jerk."

"Well, yes, that was rather the idea," Pitch replied, barely missing a stride and flashing a sharp toothed grin. "I take it from your girly yelp that it was sufficiently surprising, then?"

"I didn't know you could make monsters too! It just jumped out of nowhere!"

"Nightmares, actually. And that's just one of my many talents. Wouldn't do to be  _boring_ now, would it?"

Jack sighed, rolling his eyes. "So, again? I think we still got a few more houses we can hit before sunrise..."

Pitch shook his head. He'd seen the colored lights play in the sky just earlier. The meddlers were going to get involved soon. "I'd best be off for now, actually. Seems the Guardians have noticed what I've been up to and are going to come stampeding in to crash the party at any moment," Pitch muttered.

"The Guardians?" Jack asked, cocking his head to one side, curious. "Who're they?'

 _Wait. He doesn't know who they are yet. He's not theirs! This is perfect!_  Pitch realized with a sudden rush of glee. He swallowed a grin and instead nodded solemnly, laying a hand on Jack's shoulder. "You see, they're a group of spirits that try to ruin everything; they-"

 _No. They'll FEAR both of us. And that's not what I want_ , a treacherous echo rang through Pitch's mind, and he faltered.

"Pitch?" Jack asked, still looking up at him, trusting.

 _No. You CANNOT be passing up this opportunity. Are you completely mad?!_  another part of him screamed incredulously, but Pitch withdrew his hand from Jack's shoulder and clasped them behind his back instead. "They're... twits, frankly. Completely insufferable. We don't get on."

"How come?"

Pitch tapped one finger against the side of his own face, feigning pensiveness. "Hmm, I wonder why? Let's see if you can work it out. I'm called the Boogeyman, and they're called the Guardians." He grinned predatorily, showing off all his teeth. "I'll give you three guesses, and the first two don't count."

"You're… the bad guy?" Jack replied, hesitantly.

Pitch spread his hands. "Oh, I've been found out. What gave it away? My sunny disposition?"

Jack fidgeted, glancing down at his toes. "Well, you don't seem that bad to me…"

Pitch smirked. "Ah, yes. That'll be the brainwashing setting in. Soon you'll be nothing but my obedient little slave."

Jack looked up sharply, blinked, then let out a snort of laughter. "You're a weirdo, you know that?"

"So I've been told. I wasn't lying about the Guardians, though, they quite dislike me, and the feeling is mutual."  _Stop. Stop. Stop!_ Pitch took a deep breath and plunged on. "However,  _you_  are an insufferable brat,  _they_  are insufferable prats, and I think you lot will get along famously, what with your strange fixation on light and smiles and happiness. Oh, and you should really ask the fairy about why the teeth are so important."

"…what?"

"Tell me Jack, how do you feel about putting on a little show?" Pitch asked, grinning.

* * *

"You sure it's Pitch making trouble down there, North? This seems like pretty small-scale stuff for 'im," Bunnymund gasped from the back of the sleigh, where he was clinging to the rickety wooden contraption for dear life.

"Even if it's not Pitch, someone is threatening the children," Tooth replied. "It's our responsibility to stop them."

"Exactly!" North boomed, cracking the reigns. "Almost there now!"

A sudden crack of pale blue light from the ground below made the four Guardians crane their necks for a look. An ominous black figure was doing battle against a pale boy in a brown cloak, just past the outskirts of town. Ice blazed a path through the arc of the boy's staff as he swung it. "It  _is_  Pitch," Bunny breathed. "But who's...?"

"Whoever he is, looks like he could use help! Come on Sandy!" Tooth dove out of the sleigh, closely followed by the golden Guardian.

"Get out of here-" The boy stopped his shout and jerked in surprise when a lash of golden sand blocked the attack Pitch had launched at him, snapping his head up to spot the arriving cavalry.

Pitch's eyes narrowed at the sight of the Guardians. "Of course. Should have known. Birds of a feather and all that," he spat, before turning his glare on the boy. "Afraid you'll have to take a rain check, Frost. Watch your back." With that last threat, Pitch dropped back into the darkness in time to avoid another golden whip.

"Are you all right?" Tooth asked, fluttering up to the newcomer.

"Uh, yeah! Fine, thanks!" the boy replied with a grin. Tooth's eyes widened and she flitted forwards to pry open his mouth, peering inside with a delighted gasp, prompting a surprised "Gah?!" from the boy.

"Tooth! Fingers out of mouth!" North called as the sleigh landed on the snow with a juddering crash. Bunnymund hopped hurriedly out of the thing, shaking and looking incredibly grateful to be back on solid earth once more.

"Oh, sorry! I don't usually... They're beautiful. Your teeth, I mean," Tooth said sheepishly, removing her hands.

"Thanks?" Jack replied hesitantly.

"I think we owe ya a thanks, actually." Bunnymund said, and stepped forward, paw extended to shake. "Not every day someone faces down the Boogeyman. Who are ya, kid?"

"Jack Frost. Nice to-" Jack started to reach forward, but was interrupted.

"Welcome, Jack!" was the only warning Jack got before he was swept into a massive bear hug.

"Erk!"

Sandy floated up to eye level and flashed a pair of thumbs up to Jack before the boy was lowered back to the ground.

"Uh, this is-" Jack started to say.

"You should come with us, Jack! Much to talk about!"

"And if Pitch is after you, it's safer to-" Tooth added, or attempted to.

"Yes, yes, that too! Come, I have eggnog back at home, you'll like it!" North said, pulling Jack along beside him.

"Strewth, do we really have to take the sleigh back?"

None of the Guardians, except maybe Sandy, noticed that Jack seemed more apprehensive about going with the Guardians than he had during the battle with the boogeyman. Not that it mattered, because he was quickly whisked into the sleigh in either case.


	83. Talents

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We return to the regularly scheduled story. There's a reference to what happened in Chapter 81- Understanding in this chapter.

Pitch was starting to regret giving Jack his own cage- room. Room, he meant room. Just because it _looked_ like a cage meant nothing.

Though now he could hardly even say that it even looked like a cage, by the time Jack was through with it. He had assumed that Jack was a minimalist, what with the whole going wherever the wind and his whims took him. He had neglected to consider that Jack was the patron spirit of a bunch of snot-nosed brats and the proclivity of said brats to produce all manner of sticky, hapzard drawings and ostensible 'crafts'. The cage- room, the room was practically  _plastered_ with them by this point, dangling from the roof or taped to the bars or scattered over the floor. It had just been over a week, how had Jack collected so many things? Dear lord, what did his other rooms with the Guardians look like? Could Jack even fit into them any more?

Or maybe Jack had transferred some of his collection from the other areas to his room, to make it more homey or something. That seemed a more likely explanation.

No, he should not be smiling about that, this mess was an affront to his lair. It was a beacon of happiness and fun and everything that was opposed to Pitch's nature and he should be highly displeased with this state of affairs. Jack moving his things did not mean that Pitch was stealing any thing from the Guardians. They were all Jack's things, after all, and Pitch didn't care about how he decided to arrange or distribute them.

...He wondered if there was more of Jack's collection in the cage than there was in Jack's other rooms.

"Hey, Pitch!" Jack's yell snapped him out of that train of thought.

"I'm not deaf, brat! And I would appreciate it if you didn't attempt to induce hearing loss with your racket," Pitch snapped, glaring up at where Jack was swinging from the bottom of his cage.

"Aw. But the echoes are cool!" Jack protested, grinning from ear to ear.

"Have you noticed that they don't tend repeat what you said exactly?" Pitch asked.

"That's why they're cool! It's a neat effect, spooky!"

"Hmmn. I do try," Pitch replied as he folded his arms. "What is it that you want now?"

"Oh, right. I want a window." Jack swung forwards, let go, and caught a breeze to somersault up to land on the top of the cage. "For this thing."

"A win- You do realize you can see through the bars, right?" Pitch asked incredulously.

"Yeah, but I like windows. I come and go through them a lot. More often than doorways, really. Plus, if I got a window opposite the door, then I can thread the needle through the whole thing, and that'd be sweet!"

Pitch buried his head in his hands and heaved a sigh.

"Aw, come on. It can't be that hard, can't you just snap your fingers and change it?"

"No, actually. I can modify the layout of the lair itself, but the cages are separate objects. North can't just snap his fingers and make all the toys, can he?" Pitch replied.

"Well, uh, I guess not? I dunno."

Pitch sighed again, dropped his hands and raised his head. "It needs to be done the old-fashioned way, so if you're demanding the changes, you'd better lend a hand."

"Oh. Yeah, sure, why not?" Jack stepped off the roof and landed lightly on the floor next to Pitch. "What do you need help with?"

Pitch flicked a hand and a very well-stocked tool bench skittered out of the darkness on clawed feet. It settled to the ground and Pitch started pulling open drawers and cabinets to root around in.

Jack blinked, a little surprised at the array of wrenches and screwdrivers and other mysterious items whose purpose and names he could only guess at. "Whoa. I never really took you for a handy guy."

Pitch raised his brows. "Really? Do you have any idea how many gruesome ends one can meet from power tools? They're simply lovely. Nothing like the threat of dismemberment to keep a nice little undercurrent of fear going," Pitch replied with a sharp, wide grin, pulling out a blowtorch and welding helmet from darkened drawers that seemed far too small to contain them. "Not to mention scrapyards. I spent a lot of time haunting dark, abandoned places filled with sharp glass and rusting metal, back when I... Well, back before I had better things to do. It's not surprising that I got up to a little bit of tinkering while I was there."

Jack thought about the times he had spent zooming through crisp alpine forests on starlit nights, pretending there was someone there to race against. Of armies of snowmen made to chat with and days spent exploring mountain ranges and glaciers. "Yeah, I guess you had to keep busy. Makes sense," he admitted, jamming a hand in his hoodie pocket.

Pitch slipped the helmet on and flipped up the mask. "And did you really think that I would leave the construction of my Halloween props and mechanisms to  _humans_ ? Really? Hah, they couldn't make something scary enough even if I was there to tell them what to do every step of the way," he added derisively, as he withdrew a handful of slim metal rods from another drawer and thrust them into Jack's hands. "Alright, bring those with you. Come on now." Pitch stepped up to the opposite side of the cage on stairs that formed under his feet. 

Pitch stopped at the bars, pulled off a swath of doodles, and thrust them into Jack's hands like they were something unclean. "How big do you want it?"

"Three or four feet wide?" Jack replied, attempting to keep a hold of the pile of papers, handful of metal, and his staff all while floating next to the boogeyman; the lair hadn't been considerate enough to give him a standing space too.

"Mmn. Alright. You might want to look away." Pitch flipped down the mask and lit up the blowtorch. There was a scream of warping metal, then a clang as the rectangle of bars, edges white-hot, fell out of the cage and spiralled away into the empty yawning darkness below. Pitch flicked the torch off before setting it aside. "Okay, I need a metal strip now," he demanded, voice still muffled by the mask as he extended a hand.

"Am I just here to hold your stuff?" Jack asked sulkily, passing one of the thin pieces of metal over.

"Maybe." Pitch flipped up the mask with his free hand and grinned. "Did you think I would trust you with power tools, Jack?"

"You could have gotten a Nightmare to do this. Or you know, make a shelf," Jack muttered.

"And pass up on the opportunity to get a Guardian to do my bidding?" Pitch wound the metal around one of the bars and then across to the one beside it, firm black steel bending seemingly effortlessly under the boogeyman's hands. "Another one."

Jack sighed. But soon enough he had a windowframe formed out of twisted, gnarled black steel, twining together like snakes or ancient tree roots.

Pitch stepped back to survey his handiwork, giving a curt nod before glancing at Jack. "Well?"

"It's... That's really neat, Pitch," Jack said, reaching out to give the newly-formed window a touch of frosty gilt, white racing through the grooves and shining stark against the darkness.

"Hmph. Well, I was hoping for ominous or foreboding, considering you have no way to shut it, but 'neat'... I suppose it will have to do," Pitch sniffed and rolled his eyes, then gathered up the tools and took them back to their respective drawers.

"I mean it. But hey, next time I wanna do more than just sit by and hand you things," Jack demanded, landing behind the bench.

"Next time? Are you planning on demanding more renovations?" Pitch drawled. He snapped the drawers back shut.

"Naw, I like it. But you said you hung out in scrapyards, right? You gotta know some stuff about more mechanical things. Like, for example, motorcycles?" Jack asked, flashing a less-than-innocent grin.

Pitch snorted. "You knowing how to mess around with mechanics would be a... nightmare..." A grin to match Jack's own slowly spread over Pitch's face. "I suppose I could see my way into making some time."

 


	84. Time Out (Part 2)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy Halloween to all of you! I don't have a trick, but for a treat, have a bit of a continuation of that time-travelling side story I wrote in Chapter 82.

It had all been a bit of a blur as Jack was bundled into the sleigh and whisked off to one of the absolute coolest-looking workshops he had ever seen. He had spent most of the walk inside craning his neck to try to see all the amazing things that were flitting through the air, sitting on tables, or being made by the large, fur-covered people that scurried through the large area. He had hardly paid any attention at all to the questions that he had been peppered with until they reached a large, intricately carved table and Jack found himself sitting on a bench, clutching a mug of what the large red-coated man had called 'eggnog'. It looked a bit weird, but didn't taste half bad. Or bad at all.

"So, Jack, right? I have not heard of you before." The man and the rest of his companions had settled at the table too.

"Uh, yeah, wouldn't really have expected you to. I just... um. Not sure what you'd call it.. got created? The night before," Jack replied, finishing off the mug and licking his lips. He noticed the small golden man raising his own glass in a cheery salute.

"You're new?" The feathery lady trilled, crest flaring in excitement. "Oh, wow! There haven't been many new spirits around for a while now! Most of us have been around for ages!"

"Sorry you had to run into that git to start out with. Swear most of us aren't like him," the large rabbit added.

"Huh? Pitch, you mean?" Jack asked,

"Yes, on that topic, you should stay here, for now at least, Jack," the bearded man said.

"What? Uh, well, don't get me wrong, this place is amazing, but I was kinda hoping to get back to town for the morning," Jack replied.

"I understand, but if Pitch is targetting you, you should stay where we can protect you."

"Psh, come on. I can take care of myself. You saw me before."

"Look, kid, you're new, so I don't think that you understand how dangerous Pitch can be. He's bad news, he plays dirty, and he's absolutely ruthless. You might be able to take him on in a head on fight, but without someone to watch your back?" The rabbit shook his head.

Jack blinked. Were they talking about the same Pitch? "Come on, I'm sure he's not that bad."

"I'm afraid he is, Jack," the bird lady said, putting a hand on his shoulder. "Don't worry, you'll only need to stay here for a little while, until we can drive him off again."

The quiet golden one nodded and smacked a fist into an open palm.

"Whoa, what? What do you mean by that? Jack asked, looking around at the grim faces of the Guardians.

"Whatever Pitch has done to gain the power he's using now, we'll put a stop to it. Without any sources of fear to draw off of, it will be easy to force him back to his lair and strip him of his power over the children," the large man replied.

"Maybe we can get 'im to hole up in that pit of his permanently this time, instead of just a century of two," the rabbit added.

"Uh, y'know, that seems a lttle hasty..." Jack said, shifting uncomfortably.

The rabbit blinked grass-green eyes. "Why're you defending the blighter? You were fighting him off yourself just a while ago, weren't ya?"

"Um, well... Kind of, but..." Jack fumbled for something to say.

The rabbit's eyes narrowed slightly."Hold a tick. Let me see if I got this straight. You, a brand spanking-new spirit, just happen to be in the same area that the Nightmare King decides to make a comeback in, and then are _conveniently_  holding your own in a fight against him when we come calling. With abilities that you've been fiddling with for all of a day," he said flatly.

"Bunny, what are you saying?" the feathered lady asked.

"Seems pretty fishy to me. 'Specially since the kid's so defensive of the creepy blighter." the rabbit- Bunny- said. He snapped his gaze back to Jack. "Are you supposed ta be some kind of spy?"

"What? No! He just said that-"

"He? You did plan this with him then!" Bunny interrupted him, surging to his feet.

The bird lady flitted between them, holding out her hands. "Wait! I'm sure it's not Jack's fault. Pitch must have lied to him or tricked him..."

The large man sighed and stood up. "Whatever the situation is, I must insist Jack is kept here, for his own good as well as ours."

They were planning on locking him up?! Jack leapt backwards off the bench, clutching his staff. "Uh, I appreciate the offer and all, but-" He backed into a large, furry obstacle and glanced up to see one of the massive furry people from before looming behind him. He yelped and scrambled out of the way just as the wide, muscled arms closed around the space he'd just occupied. Jack dashed for the door, ice blazing out behind him and sending the Guardians and other creatures slipping and skidding when they attempted pursuit. Jack darted out the door, vaulted a railing, and landed lightly on the next floor down before continuing running.

He was dashing past a wide, vaulted window overlooking a breathtaking view over the cliffs when the glass suddenly shattered and a screaming gale yanked him out into open space. There was a heart-stopping moment when Jack was in free-fall over a dizzying drop, and then winds gusted up from under him, tossing him back into the air and carrying him further and further away from the workshop. Jack flailed and sputtered for a moment before managing to get into something resembling control. The wind itself seemed to be quite eager to carry him off, but it was less picky about whether he was upside down or spinning dizzily around or in some other uncomfortable position. Jack took several deep breaths and tried to calm his racing heartbeat when he noticed that he was gradually but noticably flying lower and lower over the icy, frozen plain. "Hey, no! Don't put me down h-" Jack's yell was muffled by the snow that was abruptly in his face when the wind dropped him ten feet from the air into a fluffy snowdrift. He floundered and managed to clamber out. "No, I want to go home!" he yelled out.

The wind swirled around him, pulling his clothes this way and that.

"What do you mean you don't know where that is?!"

"You're asking a bit much of the poor thing, Jack," a soft drawl said from behind him.

Jack whirled around. "Pitch!"

The boogeyman stood nearby in the shadow of a large shelf of ice, grinning. "I  _did_ warn you that the Guardians were less than fond of me, you know. You're not very good at listening, are you?"

"Were you spying on us?"

"No, actually. Sandy would have noticed me, he's troublesome that way. And I was busy elsewhere. I just felt your fear and figured that if everything went well, you wouldn't have ended up facedown in a snowbank, alone."

"Felt my fear?" Jack asked, raising an eyebrow.

Pitch shrugged. "It's what I do. Sense it, smell it, taste it, whatever you want to call it. It's not really any of those things, not really, but explaining how it works is like trying to explain sight to someone who has been blind from birth. I just know. I always know."

Jack blinked. "Well, that's weird. And creepy. Can't say you seem very put out over my disagreement with the Guardians, though."

Pitch grinned even wider, if that was possible. "Oh, I'm simply devastated for you, believe me. But, you know, if they won't take you, I might be persuaded to instead..."

"I'm not something for people to take," Jack replied, his smile fading. The memories of his immediate future being talked about as if he had no say in the matter were to fresh for him to not bristle at the implication of being laid claim to.

"Ah," Pitch faltered for a moment, the mischevious smirk dropping off his face. He shifted his weight awkwardly for a moment, then cleared his throat. "Right. Just a turn of phrase. Though I would suggest letting me take you back to the town, seeing as we are still quite close to North's hideout and I doubt you parted on the best of terms with the twits."

Jack ran a hand through his hair and blew out a relieved sigh. "A lift back home would be great, thanks."

"Good. I'll even let this one be a freebie, since it's endlessly entertaining to watch the Guardians lose their cool," Pitch drawled as he waved a hand.

Darkness surged up all around them, and after a blinded, claustrophobic lurch, Jack opened his eyes in more familiar woodland, bathed the flat grey light of predawn. He swallowed and rubbed his arms against the goosebumps that had been raised over his skin. He wasn't sure if he'd ever get used to that.

"There you go. The Guardians tend to be hesitant to charge into places where they might be easily spotted by people in daylight. Destroys the mystique or something, I suppose. We're all creatures of the night in our own way, though they'll never admit it. In any case, you probably won't be bothered until nightfall. So you should have plenty of time- oh," Pitch paused, seeming to remember something. "You didn't ask the fairy about the teeth, did you?"

"Uh, no. Didn't really come up."

"You really are bad at listening. Wait a moment," Pitch said, and vanished.

Jack sighed and leaned against a tree. Why would the teeth matter? He opted to pass the time by frosting over the branches within his reach.

The boogeyman reappeared several minutes later, carrying a little golden casket. "You should have gotten Toothiana to get these for you, really. Sending me on an errand like this is ill-advised. So many... temptations and opportunities," he mused, seemingly half to himself.

"Yeah, well, sorry for jumping to your defense so quick," Jack muttered defensively, crossing his arms.

"Oh, did you? I'm touched," Pitch drawled, a smirk tugging at his lips. "It's hardly surprising that you had to leave so quickly, then. If you had wanted to get along with them, you should have thrown me to the wolves. Metaphorically speaking, that is; though I doubt they'd argue against you doing it literally either. In any case, here you go." Pitch held out the container.

Jack took the object, looking it over. It was lighter than he expected, intricately decorated, and had the picture of a boy's face on one end of it. It seemed familiar somehow, but Jack had never seen it before in his life. "Okay, thanks for this. Are you going to tell me what it is now, or do you like keeping me in the dark?"

Pitch grinned. "I can't say I don't enjoy that, Jack. But to answer your questions, it's a set of teeth. Your baby teeth, specifically."

Jack snorted. "Yeah, pull the other one. I was made a couple days ago, and I don't remember losing any teeth in between then and now."

"You lost them before you were brought out of that lake. You were human, and you grew up like the rest of those screeching brats you're so fond of. That little case holds not just your teeth, but the memories inside them. The ones you don't have anymore."

"What?" Jack's gaze snapped up from the case to the boogeyman, eyes wide. "You mean I was someone before this?"

"Yes. I thought you should know about them sooner rather than later." Pitch tapped the case and the diamond pattern began to shine. "Go on, then."

Jack touched the shimmering pattern and was suddenly thrown back into a sea of memories. He gasped and snapped his eyes open when the flood subsided, clutching the little golden box. "I- Did you see that?"

Pitch raised a hairless eyebrow. "They're your memories, not mine."

"It was- I had a family! And a sister! And I saved her!" Jack bounced on the balls of his feet in jittering excitement. "That's why I was chosen! I'm supposed to watch over kids!" He suddenly froze, his smile dropping off his face. "And I just got booted out of the Guardians."

Pitch snorted. "Who says you need the permission of those tossers to watch over the squalling brats of the world?" he asked.

"I... Yeah! You're right! Wow, this is..." Jack let out a giddy laugh. "I don't even know how to describe it."

"Yes, well, I'm glad that you've had your epiphany for the evening," Pitch drawled. "Now in the spirit of ruining everything, I'm going to remind you that your sister thinks that you're dead."

Jack deflated at that, eyes widening. "Oh no. Emma..."

"She's still in town. She'll even be able to see you," Pitch said. "Though you might need to calm her down a little first."

"What? Why?"

"Because she thinks that you're a vengeful ghost who blames her for your death."

"SHE WHAT?!" Jack yelled. "What did you do?!"

"I have a limited skill set," Pitch said defensively. "Those nightmares were the easiest way to get her to believe."

"I cannot believe you! I have to fix this!" Jack dashed out of the woods to head for his old house. A tap of his staff had ice growing through the cracks of the window shutter, pushing the latch out of its place holding the window shut. Jack pulled the shutters open and slipped inside, freezing when a muffled sob reached his ears. Emma was huddled in the corner of the room, wrapped in blankets but still trembling, her eyes fixed on the spirit that had slipped in through her window. Jack felt his heart drop. "Emma..."

"I'm sorry, Jack! I'm so sorry. I didn't mean to kill you, I'm sorry," she sobbed, curling tighter in the blankets. "It's all my fault..."

"No. It's not," Jack said, putting his staff down and walking to where his sister was huddled. She flinched when he came closer, but didn't try to run. He knelt down and pulled her into a hug, holding her tightly. "It's not your fault. It's okay. I'm so glad you're alive, Emma. Don't be scared."

"But you're dead, Jack. You're dead because of me," Emma whimpered into his shoulder, bunching Jack's cloak in her hands.

"Hey, come on now. Do I look dead to you?" Jack asked, pulling back enough from the hug to look down at his sister. He picked up a corner of one of her blankets and used it to dry the tears on her face. "I just got a bit of a new look is all."

"But you fell in..."

"Heh. You think a little bit of water is going to keep me down? You've gotta have some faith in your brother, kid."

Emma sniffled and wiped her nose on her sleeve. "How did you come back?"

"The moon helped me. There were a couple of days there where I was still getting back on my feet, but a... a friend helped remind me about what was important. So I'm here now. I'm sorry I left you alone, Emma."

She managed a watery smile. "That's okay, Jack."

Jack hugged her again. "We're both going to be alright," he promised, and huffed a little laugh. "And you are not going to believe some of the upgrades I got. If you thought your big brother was cool before, man, do I have news for you."


	85. Cooperation

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In the near future, I'll be sticking the Time Out AU (chapters 82 and 84) into another fanfic, because it really doesn't have anything to do with the rest of the story. (I'd do it now but I'm updating from an airport and I only have 30 mins of wifi, so if it's the day after I've updated, it's probably up now.) So for fans of that side-story, good news! It'll be getting more installments on its own. For folks not fond of the sidetracking, you don't have to worry about it showing up here anymore. Onto the story! This one comes thanks to a prompt from invisibleaustrechild.

 

Okay, so deciding to mix a front of frigid air and hot updrafts had been a bad idea. Normally Jack was careful enough to at least avoid riding the winds when that sort of tumultuous collision happened, but he'd been in a bit of a rush, and he hadn't noticed...

Well, it wasn't as if he hadn't had rougher landings, Jack thought, pulling himself up off of the ground and brushing the dirt off his face. Where had he ended up now? He blinked his eyes open to look for where his staff had landed and was instead greeted with the sight of rolling fields of poppies and a dizzying wave of wooziness. _Oh, nuts_ , Jack thought, as his eyelids suddenly became unbearably heavy, his vision blurring. The fields of dreamless sleep, of all places? Jack didn't feel himself fall back into the Jack-sized indentation he'd plowed into the ground, eyes already closed and mind blank.

* * *

Pitch drummed his fingers impatiently against the hood of a car in the moonlit scrapyard, producing a noise like the sound of something slowly and inexorably climbing up out of a dark and empty basement. Where the devil was Jack? He knew the boy was unreliable at the best of times, but he had thought that the draw of being taught more skills that could be directed towards mischief would have made him show up with some amount of punctuality. Apparently not. Pitch let out a hissing breath, glaring out into the darkness. Well, if Jack didn't want to learn any kind of mechanical skills, it was no skin off Pitch's nose. Jack could go fall off a cliff for all he cared.

What was just so enthralling that had made Jack blow off their meeting? Some stupid activities with some brats, no doubt. Well, just because Pitch had all the time in the world, it was no excuse for wasting it. He should make sure that Jack was well aware of that.

Pitch spread himself through the world's shadows, looking for the flighty brat. It did not take him long to find him, but when he did, Pitch choked. He scrambled through the darkness to emerge on the very edge of the rolling field of poppies, holding himself back from stepping into it. Pitch was adept at weaving the consciousness of sleeping minds into frights and horrors, but the power of this place was something else entirely, of slumber so deep there was no inkling of stirred consciousness, just this side of death. It would be able to ensnare him as easily as Jack if he were to enter it. Pitch tightened his jaw and called a Nightmare to him. He laid hands on the creature, pouring belief-laced fear into it, causing the mare to warp and grow, fangs lengthening and horse shape becoming indistinct beneath the spines and protrusions that grew from its hide and spindly, double jointed legs. The Nightmares were creatures of sleep themselves, and unable to fall under the spell of the place, but its power was opposed to their nature. Too long and they would simply dissolve, lost to the void of dreamlessness. So Pitch would need one strong enough to reach Jack and drag him back before it could lose form entirely...

Finally satisfied, he withdrew from the monstrosity he had formed his Nightmare into and threw out his hand. "Go!"

With a shriek, the creature charged into the fields, sparks flying up from where its hooves struck the ground even though the poppies stubbornly refused to ignite. As it went further into the fields, flecks of dark sand began to peel away, its form becoming less defined and more amorphous. By the time it reached Jack's still form, large portions of it had sloughed off and it was only by the most generous of definitions horse-shaped any more. But still the Nightmare latched a hold of the Guardian's hoodie and began to drag him backwards. It managed to get the boy half of the way out before completely disintegrating. Pitch hissed in frustration and called another Nightmare.

The second attempt got the Guardian out of the fields, and Pitch crouched down to shake Jack by the shoulder. "Right, you stupid brat, it's time to get up. You've caused me enough trouble," Pitch growled, but Jack didn't so much as stir. The boogeyman let out an exasperated groan and plucked one of the poppies before scooping Jack up as well. This was outside of his realm of expertise, which meant he had to go for help. Great.

Pitch strode into a shadow and out into the bustling, irritating mess of North's Workshop. He barged between two Yetis, ignored their garbled protests, and cleared a workbench by sweeping everything else off it, onto the floor. There were a series of satisfying shattering noises following that, but Pitch was busy laying Jack down on the table and turning around to look for the fat man in the colourful chaos. "North!" Pitch snapped out when he spotted the other Guardian headed towards him. Pitch jabbed a finger at the prone frost spirit. "Fix him!"

North walked right past Pitch to stand at Jack's side, looking down at him worriedly. "What happened?" he asked.

"No, I didn't-" Pitch started to reply, before seeming to register that North hadn't accused him of anything. He paused and blinked, not sure whether he should feel insulted or not. With a shake of his head, he discarded the thought. "I'm not sure; he ended up in the fields of sleep somehow," Pitch replied, producing the poppy and handing it over.

North took the flower and twirled it absentmindedly between his fingers, staring down at it. "Last news I heard about this was Rip Van Winkle... So Jack will wake on his own, but... May take twenty years," he muttered.

"That's unacceptable."

"Yes. We will look for another way. Thank you for finding him, Pitch-"

"Oh no. You're not getting rid of me that easily," Pitch snapped, bristling. "Knowing you air headed lot, if I'm not around to light a fire under you, you'll just get distracted with your stupid little projects and nothing important will get done."

"Christmas is _very_ importa-" North started to retort, but stopped himself. He pinched the bridge of his nose and heaved a sigh. "Will not say no to help. Come, we will check the library for possible solutions."

* * *

An hour later, the remaining Guardians and Pitch were sifting through North's impressive library. The Guardians sat at a huge, claw-footed table, occasionally rising to pull down other books, while Pitch had dragged a pile of books to the shadowiest corner he could find and unceremoniously evicted any Christmas paraphernalia from it before settling in to read.

"I found something!" North finally exclaimed, pressing one large finger to a passage in one book. "Obvious! We need true love's kiss!"

There was a long, awkward silence following this pronouncement. "Uh..."

"We just need to find one! Should not be too hard," North went on, seemingly oblivious to everyone else's discomfort.

"Excuse me, you're suggesting that we find someone to kiss Jack?" Pitch asked, disdain dripping from his words.

"What? No. Is a flower. A magic one, it's supposed to work like smelling salts, and it's a counter to the poppies." North replied, turning the book around to tap a finger against an etching of a curled, fern-like flower. "True love's kiss. Funny name, yes?"

"Oh! Well, that's... That's easier then. Bunny, do you have anything like this in your warren?" Tooth asked.

Bunnymund frowned and shook his head. "Sorry, sheila. Never even heard of that thing before, let alone have it growing in my garden," he replied, scratching his head. "It's gotta be somewhere, though."

"Then next step is clear! We search!" North boomed out as he rose to his feet and slapped both hands down on the table. "Start with forests and wooded areas, though the book says that it also sometimes grows near places dedicated to wakefulness. So maybe 24-hour convenience stores or coffee bars."

"North, our usual deal is kind of to fly under the radar. Those sorts of places could be hard to get at," Bunnymund pointed out.

"Well, we'll just have to be careful. Most people at those places at night wouldn't be able to see us anyway," Tooth said.

Sandy waved and made the image of a globe bursting into smaller droplets, spraying out in different directions.

"Yes, should be splitting up. Tooth, if you can spare any mini-faries, help would be appreciated. Pitch, you-" North started to say, before he noticed that the dark corner was now significantly less dark, and also unoccupied. Pitch had left.

Bunnymund shook himself as he stood up. "It's weird to think that he's working _with_ us," he muttered. "That is, assuming he _is_ working with us."

Sandy shrugged and replied with a snowflake.

"He wouldn't try to sabotage this," Tooth agreed. "Not with Jack in trouble."

"Yeah, that's weird too," Bunnymund said, shaking his head. "Doesn't much matter anyhow, though. I'll be the one to find it first." With that, he opened a tunnel and was gone.

Tooth sighed. "We'd better get going, too."

* * *

The flower had eventually been located, growing up out of a crack in a sidewalk outside of a ludicrously busy 24-hour convenience store in Beijing. None of the people walking by seemed to notice the bloom, and Tooth and her mini-fairies, who had been the first to arrive, winced every time someone's foot came dangerously close to crushing the plant. The sheer number of people loitering around and streaming in and out of the place brought Tooth up short of being able to reach the flower, and she settled down to wait for the crowd to (hopefully) disperse as it got darker. As the sun set, she was joined by the other Guardians. When the last rays of day vanished, Pitch showed up as well.

"What are you sitting around for? Are you lot lazy as well as useless?" he demanded.

Bunnymund jabbed a finger in the direction of the flower, through the crowd of people blocking them.

"Oh. Well, if you want something done right..." Pitch muttered, and waved his hand. The lights in the store, and in the street outside, all suddenly went out. Pitch's chuckle rumbled over the sounds of surprise and alarm from the surrounding populace.

A beat of time passed before the boogeyman's voice filtered through the dark again. "Ugh. This thing smells awful. Let's go."

* * *

Back at the workshop, the flower was shoved under Jack's nose, and the frost spirit inhaled sharply and sneezed.

"Nnnh." Jack coughed and blindly reached out and shoved the flower away before his eyes fluttered open. He looked at the surrounding crowd and blinked. "Whoa. Sandy, you really make some weird dreams sometimes." He waved at Pitch, standing there next to the other Guardians. "What's next, pigs flying?"

Pitch rolled his eyes. "You're awake, dimwit. No thanks to you. What idiocy drove you to nap in the fields of dreamless sleep?" he demanded.

"Wha- Oh. Oh, right. Uh... Sorry, guys." Memory dawned, and Jack rubbed the back of his neck sheepishly. "It was an accident. Thanks for waking me up. Uh... Is my staff around?"

Pitch paused in his glower. "...I knew I forgot something," he muttered, then, louder: "We'll go get it." Pitch grabbed Jack by the hoodie and the both of them vanished without so much as a goodbye.

The rest of the Guardians looked at each other. "Well. Celebratory eggnog?" North ventured.

Shortly afterwards, the lot of them were gathered around a large table, glasses handed around. "That went out almost without a hitch. Colour me surprised," Bunnymund muttered.

"Bah. Pitch is not that bad! Come, to teamwork!" North cried, raising his cup in a toast.

The other Guardians raised their glasses and collectively took a swig. This swig was then unceremoniously spat out all over the table, all of the Guardians gagging and coughing, Sandy's signs becoming a chaotic jumble.

"Eugh! What'd you put in the eggnog, North? That was awful!" Bunnymund wheezed, trying to wipe off his tongue.

"Salt and vinegar and... and earwax would be my guess," Tooth replied, grimacing.

"I do not understand, is my special recipe! The elves should not have gotten access to it..." North got to his feet to investigate, and to grab a jug of water to rinse out his and everone else's mouth.

There had been a note left in the kitchen, next to the eggnog, along with several blood-red poppies. _'I could have used these instead. Consider my restraint repayment for your assistance.'_ The Guardians felt that this was a less than appropriate way to show gratitude, strangely.


	86. Battleground

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, I'm late for Halloween and about two years late to updating this, but I did write a chapter.

Jack stood overlooking the sparkling white landscape he’d just put the finishing touches on. The snow glittered like gold in the fading light of the sunset.

“A bit early in the season, isn’t it?”

Jack glanced over at his sudden guest. “It’s pretty far north, Pitch. And I have to get some things ready after all; after tonight there’s going to be all kinds of songs and things about winter wonderlands and white Christmases.”

“Don’t remind me,” Pitch drawled, rolling his eyes. “You’ll have to leave any other work for tomorrow, though, unless you want to forfeit our usual contest.”

“Miss Halloween? Never. I was just keeping busy, since _you_ refused to let me help or even see any of the stuff you were getting ready this year.”

“I wanted it to be a surprise. It’s all ready now, though. So you’re coming with me.” Pitch didn’t wait for a response, instead grabbing Jack and yanking him into the lengthening shadows as the last light of day faded.

Jack inhaled sharply before he opened his eyes, and the smell was the first thing that he noticed. Salt. It smelled like brine, and there was a creak of wood and a faint crack of canvas as Jack lifted his eyelids. He was greeted with the sight of a massive mast, crusted over with barnacles and coral, seaweed draped over the tattered sails and yardarms. The deck that Jack stood on was similarly adorned; this ship had clearly been resting on the ocean floor until just recently. The only source of light was a lantern hanging off a rusted hook on the mast. All around, a creeping mist billowed, blocking his view of more of the ship and muffling the light to little more than a dim glow. Another couple diffuse patches of light through the mist suggested there were more lanterns scattered around the ship.

“Wow,” Jack said, impressed. “Quite the set-up this year.”

“I do try,” Pitch’s voice said from somewhere beyond the fog. “Best of luck getting out of this one.”

The near-silence of the night was broken by sounds of apprehension and cries of fear as the guests of honour appeared suddenly on the deck.

It was only then that Jack realized he had absolutely no idea how they were supposed to escape when they were more than likely in the middle of the ocean.

Jack took a deep breath and ran his hand through his hair. Okay, first things first. “Hey! Everyone! Let’s gather up, we need to work together!” he called out, hoping enough of the kids believed in him. Soon enough he had gathered the participants around him, huddled together and eyeing the shifting shapes of the mists nervously.

That was the first problem they had to tackle. The mist meant there was no wind, no movement from the sails even if the ragged things could work, and no ability to see where they were going or where they needed to go. “Okay, it’s gonna get a bit windy here for a little bit. It’s just me. Don’t worry,” Jack said, before twirling his staff and striking it against the deck. The air around him blasted out in all directions, shredding the mist to ribbons.

This, in retrospect, may have been a mistake.

Pitch stood at the fore of the ship, nothing but a silhouette with gleaming eyes and teeth. Cackling laughter rang out all around them as he raised his hands and shadows rose up from the ground, forming into humanoid shapes that brandished equally shadowy cutlasses.

The kids screamed and scattered. Jack sucked in a hissing breath and sprang up to one of the mast’s yardarms to have a better vantage point to blast the shadow-things with. He left several of them as frosty smears against the deck, but more managed to seize children and drag them screaming down into the bowels of the ship.

Jack bit his lip and cast around the ship; he couldn’t fight all of Pitch’s underlings, not like this. His gaze stopped on a pile of wooden spars and broken oars that had been shoved up against one rail side.

He put his fingers to his lips and let out and ear-piercing whistle. “Hey! Down there!” he shouted, gesturing at the pile of detritus.

The kids caught on fast, dashing for the oars and using the poles to beat back the shadowy things. The creatures dissipated upon being struck (with ear-splitting shrieks, because of course they did) and soon there were only human children and Jack on the deck. Pitch was nowhere to be found.

Jack blew out a breath and ran a hand through his hair. Now what?

“There’s a light over there!” a voice called from far above them, and Jack looked up.

A pair of kids were leaning over the edge of the crow’s nest on the mast, pointing out over the water. One of them waved down at the rest of the group.

“How’d you get up there?” Jack called.

“We climbed.”

“We’re good at climbing!”

“It seemed safer than down there.”

“Well, I can’t argue with that,” Jack said with a shrug. He leapt up into the air and landed lightly against the top of the mast, gripping the rigging to hold himself steady. “Where’d you say?”

“There!”

Jack squinted out over the black waters of the sea, and saw a darker mass of shadows on the horizon with one bright spot of light shining out. A lighthouse? And land too.

Jack looked over the tattered sails hanging from the crossbeam. The wind wasn’t going to be able to move this ship anywhere, not with the state of these.

Well, they didn’t have to move the _ship_ , did they?

“Thanks, guys. Can you get down by yourselves?” Jack asked the pair in the crow’s nest.

“Yeah, I guess. Those things aren’t gonna come back, are they?”

“Uh, probably not?” Jack replied, and dropped back down to the deck. “Okay, new plan, everyone. We’re going to leave now.”

“How?”

“We’re going to walk.” Jack hopped over the rail and landed on the surface of the water, which froze solid under him. He tapped his staff against the ice, making it freeze to the side of the ship and anchor there. “We just need to grab a rope ladder or something so you can come down and-”

“Jack, look out!” A kid cried out at the same time Jack heard something breaking the surface of the water at the edge of his ice floe.

Jack turned his head in time to see one large black tentacle loom over him, then come crashing down.

He screamed and the wind snatched him up, yanking him out of the way. The tentacle smashed into his ice floe, snapping it off the ship, and dragged it down into the depth.

Jack sucked in a shaky breath, limbs trembling and heart pounding in the wake of that little scare. “Pitch,” he grumbled under his breath, before drifting back over to the ship and dropping onto the deck. “Well, that plan’s a bust.”

“Now what are we supposed to do?”

Jack bit his lip. “…I might be able to ferry you across one by one, but that would take a long time, and whoever gets left on the ship while I’m gone, they’ll, um, probably…”

The kids looked worriedly at the currently-empty deck.

“…If the sails don’t work, what about the other stuff?” one girl asked.

“Other stuff?” Jack repeated.

“Yeah. Like oars, or even an engine. Some ships have other means of propulsion.”

“That’s a great idea! We might be able to get the engine going again, or something. All we have to do is go…” Jack trailed off and looked at one of the gaping black holes that lead into the belly of the ship. “…down there.”

The kids shifted uneasily.

“Hey, hey. Listen to me, alright? It’s okay to be scared. It’s normal. You think I wasn’t scared when that thing tried to grab me just now?”

“No.”

“You screamed really loud.”

“Yeah, I did,” Jack admitted. “But the important thing to remember is that if you let fear stop you from trying to make things better, well, you end up stuck on a creepy boat in the middle of nowhere. And you won’t be able to get any halloween candy.”

Several kids inhaled sharply at that thought.

“So, you ready to go down into the dark?”

“...I guess,” the kids mumbled.

“That’s the spirit! Let’s go!”

The kids followed Jack as he lead them down the creaking stairs and into the salt-tinged darkness. Several kids had grabbed the lanterns that had been on the deck of the  ship, which was a good idea. Jack felt a little awkward for not thinking of that, but all’s well that ended wel-

There was a scream for help echoing from down one of the side hallways, and Jack remembered that several of the kids had been dragged down here back when Pitch first attacked.

Jack lunged forward instinctively at the sound, and was halfway down the hallway before he recalled the group he had just lead down here. He whirled around, biting his lip. “I’ll be right back, okay? Stick together! Don’t split up!” he shouted at them, before darting down the hallway. The scream couldn’t have come from too far away.

“You’re really, really predictable, Jack,” Pitch sighed  from behind him, and Jack whirled around. There was no sign of the boogeyman to be seen, but a door that he had just come through slammed shut.

“You want to fight, Pitch? I’ll win, just like I always do!” Jack called out.

“Oh, _I_ don’t intend to fight you, Jack. Where’s the fun in that? No, I’ve decided to try something _new_ this year. Tell me, Jack, how do you plan to fight those who you are sworn to protect?” Pitch’s voice asked, and Jack whirled back around at the sound of a door behind him creaking open.

Four creatures stepped out, fanning out around Jack. These beings were not like the others. They were not made of sand or shadow, but of real flesh and bone. Pitch had done an incredible job with the costuming, and the figures looked as decayed and menacing as any undead creatures, but their eyes still gleamed with the life and mischief that was only found in teenagers. Jack’s eyes widened.

The leader smiled and swung a hand forward. “Get him!” she shouted, and the group surged forward.

Jack was bowled over by the teens, who wrestled him to the ground and tried to pry Jack’s staff out of his grip.

“Traitors!” Jack cried out, struggling to keep a hold of his staff. “Let go!”

“You can’t expect us all to be goody-two-shoes, Jack! Especially on Halloween,” one of the teens replied with a grin.

“I’m telling North, you’re all going on the naughty list!”

“Phbbbt,” another teen blew a raspberry. “That’s little kid stuff, Jack.”

“Pitch said he was ticklish! See if that will make him let go!” one boy exclaimed.

“That cheater!” Jack cried, trying to flinch away from the hands that went for his armpits. “Wait, wait, don’t- ahaha!” Jack spasmed with laugher and a flurry of snow was fired off, hitting the wall beside them with a _flump_. He struggled to get a grip under the onslaught, but his hands slipped and the staff was yanked away.

“Ahaha, we win!” the leader cheered, waving the staff triumphantly.

Jack thrashed and managed to free one hand from the teens pinning him. It was all he needed.

_Splat!_ The first snowball caught one teen square in the face, and the other three followed in quick succession. _Splat! Splat! Splat!_ Jack wrenched himself free while they spluttered and wiped at their faces, and leapt over the leader with a somersault, snatching his staff back as he went.

He yanked the door back open, winked, and said “Better luck next year!” before slamming it closed in their faces and freezing it shut.

“That was not fair, Pitch,” Jack complained.

“I don’t see how it wasn’t. You had no problem with having brats do your dirty work for you, after all. Why can’t I do the same? Oh, and speaking of brats, yours seem to have gotten ahead of you.”

From a lower level of the ship came a shriek of rusty metal and grinding gears, and multiple small voices raised in yells and shouts.

“What was _that?!_ ”

Pitch chuckled. “You should really see this Jack. You won’t believe your eyes.”

Jack dashed off, following the sounds of chaos.


End file.
